TREASURE TROPOLIS
by Fanficteller
Summary: Young rabbit doe Judy Hawkins is greatly troubled by everyday problems, until she gets in her paws mysterious map which takes her to the greatest adventure on her life to search the legendary pirate, the captain Flint's the long lost treasure. During of search she meets old fox sailor and cook Nick John Wilder, who has the same life goal like Judy has but not by the honest way.
1. Chapter 1: Troubled Bunny

**Welcome to my very first fanfiction: Treasure Tropolis, which is mix of Treasure Planet's plot, Treasure Island (1950) arroundings and Zootopia's characters. I hope you enjoy it.**

 **(I do not own Treasure Planet's plot, Treasure Island (1950) film nor Zootopia's characters.)**

* * *

Prologue

Narrator: " _One of the fateful night, when the winds of night were calm and peaceful on the middle of the nighttime Caribbean sea…_ " **  
**

The gigantic amber-colored passenger and merchant vessel named Bermuda appears and sails mightly and peacefully through the night on the open sea, shiny as the sun in middle of the blue-dark night.

There was the great parties on the main deck of the ship and in the great hall inside/under of the great class dome in the middle of the ship, where the dozens beautifully and handsomely dressed passengers danced together as the party music, the celebrants speaking and laughing and the scent of the delicious party dinner on the numerous tables, filled the airspace in the decks and the hall.

Narrator: " _The great merchant ships with the cargoes of the riches of the new world were sailing in safe and secure towards their homeland through the peaceful open sea._ "

Narrator: " _But even the calmest night could turn by the unexpected way._ "

Narrator: " _Little did the Bermuda's crew and the passengers suspect,_ _during of the peaceful night without any troubles, that they were pursued by…"  
_  
Suddenly, the blood red-sailed black ship with the black ram skull flag appears and reveals that there is the pirate vessel, smaller than Bermuda but faster and armed with the cannons, in the hot pursuit after Bermuda and the pirate ship quickly, quietly and quite undetectably by Bermuda's crew catches larger and slower Bermuda.

 _"PIRATES! The mortal enemies of all honest sailors and ships, who lurked at every opportunity of large merchant ships for their precious cargoes._ "

The scene turns to the ship's pirate captain of the vessel, who's dressed in the black pirate coat and pirate hat on his head. The captain watches shiny Bermuda from his ship's bridge, with a wide grin on his face due of that he and his crew has the element of surprise given to them by the parties inside the ship, which had drawn the attention of every mammal aboard Bermuda to itself.

Narrator: " _And the most feared of all these pirates... was the legendary, ruthless, merciless and notorious Captain Nathaniel Flint!_ "

Scar-faced and half-blind Flint turns from Bermuda to his crew in the main and cannon decks, rises his clawed paw over of his head and quickly lowers it as the sign

"OPEN FIRE!" Flint yells to his gunners.

The pirate ship then begins hammer Bermuda with the heavy cannon-fire, firing the hollow cannonballs filled with powder at Bermuda and surprising badly the party guests, bellow the deck sleeping passengers and crew on the deck.

One by one, the powder-filled cannonballs flied from the pirate ship's cannons to Bermuda's side and the main deck, exploding after flying in and damaging the ship's side and the main deck severely, causing the fires everywhere inside and on the deck of the ship and killing dozens badly surprised party animals on board, causing the panic among the party guests and the passengers in bellow decks, which also made for the marine soldiers difficult to prepare the ship to immediate defense state against the pirates when there was panicking mammals everywhere.

"Sound the alarm! We're under attack!"

One of the cannonballs breaks the main mast in the process, causing the mast to collapse to the main deck in pieces. One of the raw yards falls through the glass dome in middle of the main deck and lands in the middle of the a ballroom, where it kills at the same time several celebrating turned panicing mammals beneath of its weight. The cannonballs also flies through of the hall's wall ripping it open, killing many mammals by throwing the sharp and deadly parts of destroyed wooden wall of the hall at them.

As severely damaged Bermuda begans slowly to sink into the sea, the pirate ship slowly approaches Bermuda as its port side was filled by the pirates ready to board to Bermuda's deck. The pirates and marine soldiers of Bermuda gathers to the railings of the ship and started to repeatedly shoot each other from the shops railings.

The air between of ships was full of smoke from the cannons and burning damages on Bermuda's side and deck, as well as the cries of battle from the both sides, sound of banging muskets and pistols and many marine soldiers and pirates shot to dead by each others fell to their ship's decks or fell over the railings to the sea.

Narrator: " _Flint and his crew of cruel predator and prey bandits of the seas swoop out of nowhere, attacking any ship, which dared to sail without suspecting anything bad like this on their border-free area of the Caribbean Sea. Leaving NO survivors to ease their merchant ship hunting._ "

Pirates throws then the several a three-pronged grappling hooks to Bermuda's railings and many pirate mammals, prey and predators, starts to climb along the side of Bermuda to the Bermuda's main deck with the pistols, daggers, axes and swords. Some of them even attacked inside to ship from the holes caused by the pirates heavy cannonfire. Because the pirate vessel's masts reached above of the Bermuda's main deck, some pirates armed with the swords, axes and pistols boarded to Bermuda by swunging in the ropes from their own ship's masts to Bermuda's deck to buy their fellow shipmates time to climb up after them.

The pirates attacks with the savage rage to Bermuda's maain deck full of Bermuda's armed marine soldiers, who tried by the order of Bermuda's zebra captain desperately defend the ship, it's passengers and precious cargo from the pirates.

The air is full of the smoke from the muskets as the marine soldiers fires with them at the pirates attacking over Bermuda's railing as most of the marines charges at the pirates with the swords. Many pirates died to the marine soldier's gunshots of the marine's muskets before they could get far from the reilings.

However, despite having suffered several losses by marine's muskets, the nearly unstoppable pirates takes over the ship's main deck quickly, bloody and overwhelmingly, killing everything on their sight without mercy, remorse or compassion. The blood and mutilated bodies covers the ship's deck.

Bermuda's crew loses the fight quickly with the heavy casualties in the face-to-face compat with the pirates, who surprisingly suffers only minor casualties in the compat. Proably due the most from the all Bermuda's marine soldiers being half drunken due overdrinking during the party before the entire pirate attack.

During the bloody compat, Bermuda's captain is killed in Bermuda's bridge by the pirate ship's captain in the bloody but short duel, by stabbing mortally the captain's abdomen, in the place of heart, before having finishing headshot from the pirate captain's pistol in between of his eyes, killing him immediately.

Pirates then storms into Bermuda's cargo holds, slaughtering dozens passengers of Bermuda on their way in the process, and opens the locks of the treasure chests with the swords or pistols and drain the contents of the chests to the pile of gold coins and various colored jewels before their captain.

Captain Flint scoops some treasure into his paws and laughs as he watches the shiny treasure in his paws with the greedy grin.

Then the pirates loots Bermuda's cargo hold to empty and takes its precious cargo to their own vessel and flees from the scene, leaving burning Bermuda behind to sink into the sea and its passengers, crew and survived marine soldiers are either slaughtered or locked to bellow decks and are left to there to die/drown.

Narrator: " _And then, after gathering up their spoils... they vanished into the dark of the night._ "

Narrator: " _For a hundred years, stories passed from sailor to sailor of Flint's secret and yet undiscovered trove. Hidden somewhere at the farthest reaches of the sea. Stowed with riches beyond imagination, The Greatest Loot of the Seven Seas..._ "

Narrator: " _As a kid, growing up on the little house outside of the little town, I lived and breathed those legends everyday in my life. And for many nights, when I was drifted to sleep, I was dreaming about me one day going to an adventure on the seas to search for Flint's gleeming trove._ "

Narrator: " _However, many always says that I was never able to fit to the crews of the big ships and the adventures on the seas with full of dangers are only for the big tough animals and the cultivation work, and keeping guesthouses were for my kind._ "

Narrator: " _Well, one day my dream will come true and I'll show to all skeptic ones that even my kind are able to do anything which they call "the stuff only for the big animals._ "

Narrator: " _And one day when the winds of the Caribbean, so inviting in their promise of flight and freedom, will make one's spirit to soar!_ "

* * *

Present day.

One day in the one of the many islands in the Caribbean Sea, The island of Bunnyburrow, young 17 years old bunny doe named Judy Hawkins was riding on the back of her female horse named Hurricane through of the roads and open hilly fields with the speed with which she had not ridden nor allowed to ride before… because she was the small bunny.

Everytime when Judy's horse jumped high, long and sometimes daring jumps at high altitudes, to which it had been accustomed to under her mistress' good care, Judy closed her eyes and let the free wind due Hurricane's speed to blow in her face, which made her to believe herself being in the great ship's huge mast to feel the same blow of the sea wind on her face one day. However, every landing to the ground broke this feeling.

Her riding on the road, where was many pedestrians, bothered many mammals because Judy had no intention to stop, which forced many mammals to jump out of her way and Hurricane even knocked some animals either to the ground, to the mud or to the stream and even caused something to get broken.

And for that, Judy got from the mammals waving angrily their fists over of their heads at her and shouting angrily insults after her when Judy ride off.

Riding on the speed of the wind, Judy approached the fenced sugar plantation area, where to civilians weren't allowed to pass. However, ignoring this and possible guards guarding the area, Judy encouraged her horse to jump over the wooden fence with the help of the rock outside of the area.

Judy rode through of the sugar plantation area, jumping over the wooden or rocky fences or pile of barrels with the free spirit and without any problems with the soldiers, except in the storehouse, next to which was the soldiers encampment where was group of soldiers in a break.

Judith suddenly plunged out behind a corner of the storehouse, surprising the large elephant guard in the process, causing him to lose his balance and fell on the pile of wine and honey barrels which someone wine merchant honey badger and grizzly bear were brought for the soldier, smashing them under the elephant's weight.

So much good wine and honey leaked to the ground and the sound of smashing wood barrels alerted more soldiers to the scene, but when the first one soldiers stepped into the stone street's stone slabs, which was covered by the double layer of wine and honey, they slipped on the ground and the rest of the guards, who didn't saw their fellow soldiers due of their rushing hurry on the scene, stumbled on them.

Judy headed towards the Island's lion governor Leodore's fine mansion, even though there was a high cliff and a long jump between a cliff and Leodore's mansion.

But it seemingly did not stop Judy.

"Come on, Hurricane!" Judy encouraged her horse.

Hurricane increased the speed to her legs as she ran towards the edge of the cliff, which protruded out from the cliff towards Leodore's mansion as far as it could.

And then, after Hurricane reached to the edge of the cliff, she jumped from the edge to the long and arcuate leap.

"WOOHOO!" Judy, rising her paws into air, yelled out of enjoy and when they were in the air.

Hurricane flew through the air toward the palace window, which was large enough for the horse to get it, a bit lower high than the cliff itself and luckily for Judy and Hurricane, one of Leodore's servants opened it and just in time jumped away from Judy's and Hurricane's way.

Judy and Hurricane landed safely to the room throught the window, accidentally ruining the badly surprised governor Leodore's peaceful dinner time in the process. Hurricane crushed Leodore's finest plates filled with delicious steaks and goblets filled with wine under of her hooves and kicked mashed food to surprised Leodore's face, messing Leodore's finest governor suits and fine dining table with the mud and dirt from her hooves.

Judy rode to the opposite room, knocking accidentally some of Leodore's surprised servants out of the way in the corridor as she rode to the room, where also in the other side of the room was the similiar large window opened.

Hurricane jumped through of it, landing to the barrel wagons luckily left under the window and landing safely to the mansions courtyard. Hurricane then ran through of Leodore's quickly dodging servants and guards and at lastly Leodore's horse stables before jumping over the another fence and riding away from Leodore's mansion through the streets.

"WOOHOO!" Judy let out another shout out of enjoy of this.

But when Judy had ridden some distance away from the governor's mansion, she suddenly heard fast running horses hooves stamping against the street's rock slabs, meaning that there was riders on the horses galloping right behind of her… or, more precisely, right on her heels.

Judy peeked awkwardly over her shoulder and spotted several royal guards, mostly lions and polar bears, even Leodore himself, riding after her in the hot pursuit. They had on their faces, especially Leodore's face, the burning glare targeted to her.

"Uh-oh!"Judy said and encouraged Hurricane ran faster, because she knew that if Leodore and his red-coat "goons" get her in their claws, she was in the BIG trouble.

However, the escape did not last longer when Judy spotted much to her surprise the group of soldiers blocking her way with the lowered spears and the loaded muskets, demanding her to stop her horse at once.

Judy considered to encourage Hurricane to jump over the wooden fence in order to escape from the trap, but because of their loaded muskets and fearing Hurricane to get hurt either from the possible gunshots or then by lowered spears, Judy had no choice but stop Hurricane in front of the soldiers, although with reluctance.

She then turned around and saw Leodore and his guards arriving to the scene. Leodore glared at Judy with the pure hate and growled loudly.

"Oh, crap!" Judy sighed, knowing that she was in trouble, once again.

* * *

Meanwhile on Judy's home outside of the town, called by the name Bunnyburrow inn, Judy's widowed mother Mrs. Bonnie Hawkins, was diligently serving today's big, same-sized and small customers and dozens of visiting relatives and another of her folk. It was once again one of those long and hard days for her, because she was only one who kept this the whole place standing alone and from here and there the visitors cried out their orders, leaving to Bonnie no time to take even some break.

"Ahem, Mrs. Hawkins." Growled old tiger sailor in the corner of the main room.

"I know… refill on the rum. Coming right up, Mr. Claw." Bonnie said when she was taking to the nearby table, where her sister's family their ordered meal.

"There we go, sister. Here's your delicious blueberry pie, two carrot soup..." Bonnie said as she handed over her sister's, her sister's husband and their two daughters their ordered meals.

"And Here's a big bowl of delicious carrots, for the big boy!" Bonnie said as she handed over a bowl full of carrots for her sister's son.

"Awesome!" Bunny boy said and began to eagerly eat carrots, with no table manners, of course, while eating.

"Enjoy." Bonnie wished and departed, leaving her sister's family to eat their meals.

Bonnie was finally able to bring to her old family friend, Dr. Emmitt Otterton, the american river otter abd the personal doctor on this island, his meal while he was reading something to spend his time whike waiting for his order.

"I'm so sorry you had to wait so long, Otterton. It has been the madhouse in all morning." Bonnie said putting Otterton's meal on the table"

"No problem, Bonnie." Otterton said calmly and turned to his meal as Bonnie departed.

"Ah, boiled eggs and delicious fish soup. Mmmm, yummy." Otterton said sniffing his food, which scent brough the smile on his lips after feeling the fish warm, delicious and wonderful scent in his nose.

Otterton tried then to start eating his meal, until he notices a little bunny girl staring at him from the same corner of the table.

"Hello. What brings you here, curious little... bunny girl?" Otterton said cautiously.

Otterton picked up then a spoonful of his fish soup with his spoon, but pauses again in middle of putting it to his mouth when he sensed that the bunny girl continued staring at him.

Otterton started slowly get annoyed by the girl's presence and ruining his a private appetite.

"Bye bye… Go away… Off you go now…" Otterton waved, keeping himself cool because he did not willing to raise his voice against the little bunny girl out of annoyance due of her presence while trying to enjoy his meal. However, the bunny girl didn't move from the place she was standing, neither turned her eyes away from him.

"Are your parents around here somewhere?" Otterton asked while looking around. The bunny girl still did not answer, just continues staring at him.

Otterton then took gentle expression and leaned to his table's corner, looking at the girl whilke holding his full spoon in the air in his left paw.

"Now, what's the matter, little one? Did a cat got your..."

Suddenly, before Otterton could finish what he was about to say, another bunny girl jumped behind of Otterton in other side of the table and kicked with her feets his meal off from his spoon, which flew in the air until bunny girl jumped up and catched it to her mouth. This surprised Otterton and his gentle expression turned to annoyed expression for being fallen to the girls trick.

"WOW! Hey!" Otterton yelled while little bunnies ran away happily.

"I though you rabbits do not eat fish!" Otterton yelled in annoyance after the kids.

Bonnie then arrived to the scene, giggling heartily after having witnessed her nieces tricking Mr. Otterton so cunningly.

"Oh, look my sister's funny children, Stella and Sharla. They are a little bit mischievous but at the same time so adorable at that age!" Bonnie said looking after her nieces with the gentle smile as they reached to their mother.

Otterton, instead followed their going with the disgusted expression on his face.

"Oh, yes. Deplorable. Uh, I mean - adorable." Otterton quickly correct his words as he put his spoon to the table, losing at the same time his appetite, because who knows where those little bunnies feets had been.

He was about to tell to Bonnie that she should as their aunt to teach them herself or at least tell their mother to teach them some manners at the table, but he, however, decided to wipe it out of his mind because it may be quite rudely said from the family friend.

"Speaking of which, how's Judy doing?" Otterton asked.

"Much better. Bonnie answered. "I know she's had a few rough spots this year, but I really think she's starting to turn a corner." Bonnie said and started to gather dirty dishes from the main room's tables to the desk.

Suddenly, the inn's door opened and there was Governor Leodore with two red-coated polar bear, Andersen and Snarlof, and two lion guards, Delgato and Johnson. Polar bear guard Andersen held Judy in his strong paw in the tight grip. Only half of Judy's head was in sight and her feet were hanging below the polar bear's white paw.

"Ahem, Mrs. Hawkins?" Leodore asked.

"JUDITH LAVERNE HAWKINS?!" Bonnie shouted in surprise and shock, dropping at the same time her full arms of dirty dishes, which all broke after hitting to the floor."

"Ooh, wrong turn." Mutered Mr. Otterton.

"Hi, mom." Judy said with awkward but quite an innocent-looking grin and giggle in the polar bear's grip.

Then she pushed with her paws Andersen's thump and fingers away around of her body and fell on her feet to the floor.

"Alright, thanks for the lift, guys." Judy said with after getting free from the polar bear's grab and tried to walk away in the inn.

"Not so fast, you little brat!" Leodore said roughly and by his nod, Andersen grabbed Judy again to his double tight grip and lifted her from the ground. This time Judy's head was completely in sight above the polar bear's grip.

An angry Leodore stepped in to the inn and began immediately down to business, without apologizing his sudden visiting and bothering Bonnie's hard working day.

"We apprehended your daughter, again, and in this time riding in a restricted area, where the civilians aren't allowed to pass." Leodore said. "The charges against her are, unauthorized passage, speeding around in the horseback, disturbance of civilians, a surprise attack against my guards on their break in the sugar plantation, unauthorized penetration to my mansion and yet... uh..."

"Unintentional destruction of property." Judy said quite simply.

"You mean "deliberate?" Leodore asked with bitter tone.

"Not in my language." Judy answered, with no effect in the rabbit's face under the angry governor's cold scowl.

Leodore crowled in annoyance at Judy.

"However, thank you." Leodore said, turning his eyes away from Judy's.

"Do not mention it." Judy simply said back.

"Oh, Judy!" Bonnie said in irritation

Judy's innocent-looking expression and grin on her face lowered after she made the eye-contact with her annoyed mother.

Leodore turned his attention back to Bonnie. "As you are aware, ma'am, we had talking about her recent vandalism in my celebrations two weeks ago."

Judy rolled her eyes about that one. It was just pure accident, when she accidentally pushed Mr. Bear's two carts, which were filled with Mr. Bear's new beehives and honey jars down from top of the hill... straight middle of Leodore's celebrations in his mansion's garden, causing the really big bee mess which ruined the whole celebrations.

And that's not all, Leodore was himself in the way of the rolling honey carts, which threw some honey jars towards to him after it collided to the rock which break its wheel. The governor was instantly covered with honey, which attracted most of the bees upon him.

Afterwards, Leodore bitterly blamed Judy for ruining the celebrations and his public humiliation before his high officers and honorable celebration crowd of his family.

"Oh, come on, Leodore! It was just pure accident. No one should not get so mad for a few tiny and quite harmless bee sting." Judy said defending herself, to which Leodore react with the deep growl and cold gaze before turning back to Bonnie.

"I gave you a chance to teach her something about the "good manners and discipline" and here's the result. Didn't I made it clear then?"

"Yes, yes- No, I mean, I understand, but, um, co-couldn't we just-?" Bonnie said, nervously stuttering on her words while trying to explain about her family's and her daughter's situation being alone her responsibility.

"Um, pardon me, the governor, if I might, uh, interject here?" Otterton said and walked interrupting to the scene.

"The name is the noted co-driver and the doctor Emmitt Otterton from the same island. Perhaps you've heard of me? (awkward silence) No? Well, if I currently remember, you were one of my patients after that "bee accident" and…"

"Silence!" Leodore yelled annoyed by this intervene. "What justifies you come to interrupt our business which are not your business? Or are you this brat's father?" Leodore asked firmly

"Oh, good heavens, no! He's not. He's otter, no rabbit, and he's just an old friend of our family." Bonnie nervously explained.

"BACK OFF, OTTER!" Leodore roared loudly, causing Otterton fall to the floor.

Bonnie helped Otterton back to his feet and sent him away from the scene.

"Thank you, Otterton. I will take it from here." Bonnie said.

"Well, Bonnie, if you insist." Otterton said and was about debart from the scene until he quickly turned to Bonnie and whispered to her ear.

"I think that we need in fact Leodore's own mother here to tell him something about good manners." He said quietly.

Leodore heard that one very well and growled at quickly retreating otter deeply, until he turned back to Bonnie.

Impatient Leodore continued what he was saying: "Though I should arrest your annoying daughter right here and right now and confiscate her horse due the recent damages she has caused, numerous complaints of the townspeople she has antagonized with her "so-called accidents" and "so-called unintentional" vandalism and repeated violations of the law on this island, I'll grant to your daughter one last chance and very last warning. Mark my words, Mr. Hawkins, if there's any more slip-ups with the law, there's a dark, cold and rat-filled dungeon waiting for her in the island's fortress." Leodore said and targeted his cold and vicious gaze to Bonnie's terrified eyes.

"Is that a clear?" Leodore asked coldly.

By Leodore's nod, Andersen roughly released Judy from his grab to Bonnie's arms.

"Yes it is, Leodore." Bonnie said before backing off with Judy and turning firmly to her. "It won't happen again." She said to her daughter.

"My men see her kind of animal brats every day in the city, ma'am. Either as vandals, troublemakers, bandits, bullies, boasters, stowaways... or even as losers like you, brat." Leodore said mockingly glaring at Judy, who glared back at him with her widened eyes, greatly offended by Leodore's words.

"I should leave this hellhole at once, where that brat's presence gets my nerves by anger and disgust and her stink annoys my nose, but because she ruined my peaceful dinner, I'll eat here." Leodore said and departed to looking for empty table from the main room and his men followed him.

After Leodore and his men were departed from the scene, Bonnie turned firmly from them to Judy, greatly disappointed and having enough of her recent behaviours.

"Judy, seriously, I have had it! Do you really want to go to the dungeon in the fortress, is that it?" Bonnie asked from her daughter firmly and with the scolding tone.

Judy did not answered. She instead just stood quietly in place her paws in her black-brown coat's pockets and avoided the eye-contact with her mother's eyes.

She then quietly turned around and walked away from her mother.

But instead of going up the stairs into her room, Judy took a washing-up bowl from the nearby table and started quietly to gather dirty dishes from the another tables left by the already departed visitors.

"Judy?" Bonnie called her, but Judy did not answer to her, neither turned to her mother.

"Judy, look at me." Bonnie tried once again." "It's been hard enough keeping this place afloat by myself without you going out there to break something or annoy someone from the townspeople like you did with Leodore today with your increased vandalism and…"

In annoyance and frustration, Judy turned to her mother a frustrated and self-defending expression on her face.

"But mom, they're the ones who calls them as vandalism action. I just call them as innocent accidents which happens all of time." Judy said in self-defense

"And what happened today during of my ride with Hurricane, it was not a big deal. No one didn't even hurt… not at least badly when I accidentally surprised one elephant guard from behind the corner, causing him accidentally to collapse onto the pile of wine and honey barrels which led into the mess which knocked down several other guards"

"Besides, this is a free island. It's that blasted oversensitive pussy-cat, who's always claiming the lands from this island for his own purposes to make more money for himself, and that lion with his minions are always tyring to seek excuses from my innocent accidents to take me behind the bars and…" Judy tried to explain.

However, Bonnie only gave to her daughter a scolding look, implying that she didn't believed her daughter even though Judy tried to honestly explain.

Judy sighed in frustration and shrugged her shoulder.

"Just forget it, mom. Forget it." Judy said silently and turned to contine to gather more dishes from the another tables.

"Mrs. Hawkins! Where's my damned rum?!" Claw roared from the corner beating the table with his fist, catching Bonnie's attention.

"Yeah, you slow old bunny!" Food on the table and quickly! You daughter brat messed my dinner, so you have to serve me with your best!" Leodore roared from the next table.

Also Leodore's soldiers beat the table shouting inision: "Food! Food! Food!"

"The food here right now or we break the inn to the ground." Andersen threatened, much to Bonnie's and her visiting family member's annoyance.

"Yes, I'll be right there, Mr. Claw! And just a minute, Mr. Leodore." Bonnie said back.

"Hurry up, it took from my servants today the whole morning to make dinner changed breakfast for me and I have already a roaring hunger in the stomach. And remember Mr. Hawkins, no vegetables, only roast meat and wine!" Leodore angrily demanded.

Bonnie sighed out of frustration and quickly turned back to Judy.

"Judy, I just don't want to see you throw away your entire future just like that." Bonnie said, deeply concerned for her daughter's life, before she returned to her other worries and serve her impatient guests.

Judy took the dirty dishes to the kitchen, where much to her annoyance was waiting for her a huge mountain of dirty dishes.

Judy sighed out of frustration.

"Yeah, and what kind of future? A dishwasher in the kitchen of the king of Zoongland himself, huh?" Judy mutered in annoyance, knowing that due of that mountain of dishes, she was not gonna get away from this very soon, not before every last plate was clean and back in its right place in the kitchen.

Judy thought her recent question for a moment, before she let out of bored sigh.

"Yeah, that would be much worse punishment than to be thrown into the jail or even to be sent to the executioner's chopping block by Leodore." Judy muttered and began to wash the dishes.

* * *

 **And it was my first chapter of my story and more is coming. I hope you enjoyed it.**


	2. Chapter 2: The Treasure Map

**New Chapter of TREASURE TROPOLIS is now out.**  
 **Enjoy**

* * *

Later on that day, Judy was sitting on the rooftop against the chimney. Scowling and ears down against the back of her head she spent her time by threwing the nuts one by one to the air, until her sharp hearing catched her attention to what Dr. Otterton and her mother were speaking about her inside the inn.

Judy leaned closer to the window to listen.

"I don't know how you manage it, Bonnie." Otterton said. "Trying to run a business while raising a brat like - brat? – Uh, excuse me - lady – lady like Judy."

"Manage it? I feel like I've managed nothing with her, Otterton, and I'm already at the end of my rope." Bonnie said, deeply exhausted and frustrated from the day.

"Ever since her father left, well. Judy's just never recovered from it. And you know how smart she is. She learned against my will to use the firearms such of pistols, muskets and use even a sword, to ride on the back of large and fast horse like our hurricane and she built her sailboat for her short excursions when she was eight!" Bonnie said, with the light impressed tone, which quickly turned into disappointed and desperately worrying tone.

"But lately, she's not doing well at school. She is constantly in trouble due of act of vandalism she constantly calls as an innocent accidents. She spends too much time alone and she does not really show interest to do something for her troubles. And when I talk to her^face-to-face, she's like a stranger to me. I don't know what to do now, Otterton. I've already tried everything for her."

Judy heard everything what her mother just said and even though the words "smart she actually is" made her briefly smile until her mother list all her troubles, she tried mostly to ignore all of it, especially the mention about her father who just left her and her mother behind when she was eight. It haunted heer deeply and seemingly for rest of her life

Judy let out the deep and calm sigh and tried to look away from the window, but feeling sorry for her mentally already tired mother and the tiny spark of guilt for her failure in life got her turn her eyes to the window.

Suddenly, her sharp hearing catched the sound of steps on the road. Someone was walking towards the inn.

When figure came closer, Judy realized that it was one large, seemingly aged, obese and scar-faced cheetah wearing a black cape and a sailor's hat. He was seemingly carrying something with him.

Judy jumped off the rooftop and walked towards the cheetah sailor.

"Sorry sir but we're closed for the day. We are not receiving guests anymore this time of day." Judy said, hoping that the cheetah would turn around and go back to where he ever came from or continue his journey to where ever he was on his way.

The cheetah instead ignored her by rudely pushing her out of his way and continued walking towards inn's door.

Annoyedfor being pushed aside like doll, Judy jumped back on her feet and rushed after the old cheetah.

"Sir, I told you. This place is closed. We are not taking anymore visitors for the day."

Cheetah didn't answer to her. It was like speaking to the tree which was naturally alive but cannot speak back.

The cheetah ignored Judy once again and without bothering to push Judy aside again, cheetah continued walking until he reached to the door of the inn.

He was about to knock on the inn's door until Judy jumped between of him and the door and aimed him with the pistol what she had carried secretly with her.

As Bonnie had said to Otterton, Judy had learned to use and shoot with the muskets when she was eight. Judy had even trained herself to shoot with the muskets and pistols by shooting the bottles of rum, which she had put to stand in the line on the wooden or rock fence, in the open field and near a bustling road.

However, when she turned ten, her mother found out her daughter's secret hobby, or then she was informed about her daughter's loud shooting training by someone, most likely one of the soldiers who had believed the shooting being caused by the bandit troops near of the town, Bonnie had hardly forbidden from her such of things.

Judy knew that her mother will not like it if she finds out that her daughter still carried the guns with her against her will, but Judy felt herself to be old enough the carry even one small pistol with her. Besides, her motivation and reason to carry it was that nobody ever knows what kind of business the strangers were around and it was in her opinion rightful carry the pistol to defend her family against the strangers if necessary.

"Do not even think about that I don't know how to use this." She said with the hard tone. "And I'm not gonna say this a third time, so please. Who ever you are, from where ever you came from and why are you here, turn around and leave, now!"

"The name is Claw Bones, I came from nowhere and I'm not going to anywhere tonight, and this isn't a toy for the little bunnies." Cheetah said and unexpectedly grabbed the pistol from Judy's paws to check it quickly out.

"As I guessed, the gunpowder is too old and the weapon is not even loaded." He said and threw lazily the weapon away.

Judy was stunned by this. She was sure that the gunpowder was quite fresh and the gun was loaded. Judy is not so stupid that he would leave the pistol's powder from renewing and the gun from loading if she needed it against the strange and possibly hostile strangers.

Judy rushed after the weapon to check it out by herself.

"Hey! You cheated me! Gunpowder is fresh and I loaded the gun a few minutes ago!" Judy shouted to the sailor, annoyed that she had actually fell to the sailor's trick.

But when she turned around, she realized that the cheetah had taken advantage of this and knocked on the inn's door before he had quite rudely stepped in.

"Oh, crap! Mom's gonna kill me for this." Judy said to herself.

Moreover, the heavy rain then suddenly arrived, which made Judy soaking wet in the seconds.

"Oh, double crap." she muttered.

* * *

Inside of the inn, Leodore and Mr. Otterton were making the departure while Bonnie sat down, greatly exhausted for the day.

"Thanks for listening, Otterton. It helps." Bonnie said and put her paw over of her forehead.

Sympathetic Otterton walked to her after he got dressed in his green coat and gently landed his paw to Bonnie's right shoulder.

"Everything is going to be OK. Some day. you'll see." Emmett said with comforting and sympathetic tone, earning the thankful smile from Bonnie.

Bonnie then stoop up and turned to the wall, where was the paintings of her little baby Judy when she was much younger and nicer.

"Watch these pics, Otterton. I can't believe that those days were over so quickly after she turned eight. I miss those days so much that I keep dreaming one day I'll open that door and there she'll be just the way she was. A smiling, happy, sweet and cute little girl, wearing the homemade pirate hat, wooden sword and playing pirates with her childhood sheep and rabbit friends in the old shipwrecked sailboat and sometimes she's begging me to join them." Bonnie said with a giggle while watching the old paintings and remembering those golden days.

"Oh? So your little brat wants to be a pirate, huh? By all means. At least it would be one good reason more to throw her to the dungeon. The reason, where the mother's love and support would not help her." Leodore said sarcastically, which hurted Bonnie deeply.

Seeing a tear dropping from Bonnie's right eye to her cheek, Otterton turned his offended, angered and Bonnie's feelings defending glare at Leodore when he was about to grasp the door's handle.

But when he was about to open the door's handle, someone knocked on the door.

Otterton was about to ask from Bonnie that did she wait for someone tonight but impatient Leodore pushed Mr. Otterton roughly out of his way and opened the door by himself, only to be unexpectedly and immediately knocked down by the door pushed roughly open by the old cheetah sailor walked in from the stormy rain.

"Evening." Cheetah said. "You have a rum? I'm dying of thirst."

Bonnie was surprised by the cheetah's unexpected arrival at her inn and home's door.

"We are closed, mister." Bonnie tried to explain. "We are not receiving guests anymore at this time of the day."

The cheetah didn't care but sat down to the chair and lifted something on the table. The old sailor chest what he was carrying.

Bonnie demanded him to leave immediately couple times, but Cheetah only ignored her and ordered her to bring some rum for him before he's gonna take it by force.

Bonnie sighed deeply and brought some rum for the old cheetah. She thought that only one is enough but the old man demanded six bottle more while he started to drink from the first one.

The governor rose to his feet angrily muttering and rubbing his nose after it got the hot from the door, while Judy, soaking wet and ears down, walked it and closed the door behind of her.

Mr. Otterton noticed Judy in wet of the rain and by Bonnie's request because she was a bit busy, Otterton quickly search for a blanket and brought it for her and took her near the fireplace before she would have time to catch a cold.

While Mr. Otterton was cooking on tea for Judy, she wrapped a blanket around of her body and clutching her ears to dry, while angrily staring at the old cheetah sailor for being pushed aside and even being tricked about the pistol, until she noticed the chest on the table next of him.

"What do you have in the chest?" Judy asked out of curiosity, because the chests were always so interesting.

Once when she was a child, she had walked on the beach with her childhood's sheep and rabbit friends after the strong hurricane, which had brought always something interesting into the beach, mostly empty bottles of rum, board clips but sometimes something bigger like wrecked sailboats and figurehead from the ship.

Once, they found the chest buried in the sand, which they were about to claim its secret contents to themselves and open it to find out what was inside the chest, until Leodore's wolf guards had suddenly arrived to the scene and rudely claimed the chest and its content to be Leodore's property, taking the chest away.

"I also would like to know." Leodore said after spotting old cheetah's chest as well and getting immadiately interested of it and its contents. "As the governor of this town and this island, ordered to this position by his majesty the king of Zoongland, I demand to know what do you have in that chest, sailor!"

Judy was openly annoyed that Leodore was once again trying to claim himself something what wasn't even his own.

"You're not my king, landlubber. That's only Claw Bones' secret and I can share the secret of my chest with the only one person, who's worthy of it." Cheetah said after drinking empty the third bottle of rum. "And that means, that the lion like you is not the right person I'm looking for nor even worth of the secret inside the chest, so this is my answer to your question and demandings. That's not your business! Ya understand, landlubber?"

While Leodore and this "Claw Bones" started the argument about that chest and about what Claw Bones had just called Leodore, Judy noticed the black key which was hanging in the Bones' hanging wrist.

Her curious took her over and taking advaantage of Claw Bones and Leodore's argument, she threw a blanket off and started to sneak as quietly as she could close that interesting key to grab it to herself. Bones did not attach to her any attention, so Judy kept moving until she was so close to grab the keys.

"Judith Laverne Hawkins!" Bonnie shouted her name which a bit startled her. She turned around and noticed her mother looking at her with the scolding gaze.

Judy immediately pulled her paws behind of her back and took an innocent grin although she knew that she had been caught in the act.

But before Bonnie could say a word out of her mouth to scold Judy for attempt of pilfering, Claw Bones intervened to the scene between Bonnie and her scolded daughter, breaking immediately the argument between of him and Leodore.

"Hey, wait for minute, did somebody said the last name "Hawkins?" Claw Bones asked eagerly and curiously from Bonnie.

Before anyone could say anything else, there was a knock to the door again.

"Oh, great! More strangers!" Bonnie said in frustration.

"Alright! That's it!" Leodore shouted impatiently. "I've spent too much time in here to solve this little bunny brat's today's messes and now this annoying argument with this… this… dirty and bibulous beggar. I'm going back to my presentable and cozy mansion and leave you with these rats and…"

But when Leodore opened the door, the flash of the lighting revealed to them that behind of the door was standing in the dark and stormy night rain the sinister figure of the black jaguar, who had one blind eye, two missing fingers, scar on his right cheek and a black hooded cloak.

Everyone was quite frightened by the jaguar's appearance and his sudden appearing from the dark stormy night to the door. The governor was greatly frightened and backed quickly away from the door and went cowardly into the hide behind of the corner.

"What are you standing there like the kibbles of the chess game? Protect me!" Leodore said with the childish tone to his guards from the corner he was hiding.

By his order, Andersen, Snarlof, Delgato and Johnson grabbed to their muskets, quickly loaded them and aimed them at the jaguar on the door, warning him to not coming any closer of them or make any sudden and foolish move against them or they'll shoot him immediately.

This caused the jaguar to let out the deep growl at them, but he didn't react to Leodore's soldiers threat in any other way. He just ignored them and the musket aimed at him.

Jaguar spotted Claw Bones sitting in one of the the main room's tables drinking rum and stepped in, walking slowly but threateningly towards him, disgusted by Claw Bones' drinking ways.

"I was ordered BY HIM to hand this mark to you, Bones." Jaguar growled with the dark tone before turning around and walking towards inn's door and closing it behind him. Unbeknownst to anyone inside of the inn, jaguar barred the every door and window in the house, except the front door, trapping them all inside the inn before leaving the scene to the dark of the night and storm.

Jaguar had left to Bones paw the small wrapped piece of paper page from some book, which he opened slowly but strangely nervously and trembling.

And then, he gasped in horror. There was the Black Spot in middle of the paper and to the paper was written under of the Spot "Hunted down."

"Black Spot!" Bones whispered in horror.

Then, Claw Boses turned to everyone inside the main room.

"Listen to me, all of you! Do you know what that Black Spot means?!" Bones asked from all of them in half panick.

Nopody didn't answered because they were all unawave about the meaning of this, mysterious Black Spot, which Bones immediately and to his horror spotted.

"Black Spot… it's some kind of… verdict made by pirates to another pirate among the pirates?" Judy said unexpectedly, surprising completely her mother and Leodore by this knowledge about this mark.

Probably Judy had learned that from her childhood pirate plays with her childhood friends, when she and her friends had made from the homemade pirate ship from the old bathtub, long-handled brush and an old bed sheet – and even managed to keep it on the surface of in a small lake - Judy had as the pirate captain of their "ship" with the playful manners handed to one of her sheep friends the piece of paper with the black spot in middle of the paper and she had wrote to it "To the plank." As a result, the sheep got a cold bath.

"Exactly, little girl!" Bones shouted. "And this Black Spot means that my old fellow sailor comrades are still out there looking for me!"

Bones then wrapped his arms protectively around of the chest.

"They're after my chest. Especially that fiendish bandit, and his accursed band of cutthroats! But they'll have to pry it from old Claw Bones' cold, dead fingers afore I…"

Bones' speech was suddenly cut off by the sudden and loud gunshot coming from the outside of the inn.

Then, suddenly and badly surprisingly, the bullet from the musket flew through of the main room's window… hitting Claw Bones in the chest.

Claw Bones let out a loud roaring-like miaow out of pain and collapsed to the ground holding with his paws the gunshot wound.

Bonnie gasped in shock, raising her paws over her mouth after seeing what just happened.

Judy's eyes widened and she went speechless by shock. Her face was covered by cheetah's blood which had flied over her from the gunshot wound after the bullet hit in the seconds in Claw Bones' chest.

Mr. Otterton quickly rushed to Bones' aid before it would be too late to save him.

Meanwhile, Judy ran to the window and peeped carefully out from the hole of the window, bright flash of the lighting revealed that the group of sinister figures in the black jackets and sailor hats were closing the inn and they were shooting at them with their pistols, muskets and blunderbuss.

Multiple bullets started to fly through of the inn's walls and windows hitting everywhere in the main room.

"Get down! Get down!" Judy cried out as she quickly ran to her mother and pulled her down to the floor to cover from the bullets. Also Otterton and Leodore's soldiers quickly jumped in the cover when the firing began

Governor's guards quickly rushed to return fire and Judy, against her mother's orders to stay close of her, quickly ran to the cellar.

Her way to there was blocked by the wooden door, which has the metal lock and Bonnie happened to have the only key to it. But because there was no time to go back to ask the key from her mother and the door's wood was luckily already rotten by time, Judy quickly kicked the rotten door open with the couple of hard kicks with her feets. It was enough to break the door and Judy rushed quickly in.

Judy gathered as quickly as she could a few muskets, bag of ammunition and gunpowder horn. Bonnie had taken them to the cellar to rot after she had discovered her daughter's dangerous hobby and denied such of "toys" from her.

But now, Judy simply and independently overturned the ban made by her mother due of them being under attack.

Judy then quickly ran back to the window, quicckly loaded her weapons and returned fire with the guards, firing at the bandits and killing anyone who dared to come closer/inside of the range of inn's light.

During the fire fight, Mr. Otterton tried to somehow remove the bullet from Bones' gunshot wound, which wasn't easy because he had nearly nothing what he needed so badly right now to help the wounded one, especially the one who's mortally wounded. He wasn't even expected his tonight visit turning into such of bloodbath. Bonnie was helping him to keep teeth biting and in pain struggling Bones down and relaxed.

The battle was not going well for Judy and the guards. They barely even saw outside because of dark storm and there was probably six or eight attackers against one. The bandits were firing unceasing and so densely, that it almost blocked Judy's and Leodore's guards all chances to return fire at them.

Under the protection cloak of darkness, the attackers approached the inn quickly and when some of them reached next to the inn's doorwall, the bloodbath turned quickly from bad to worse.

Andersen was first got the bloody shot from blunderbuss in the head through the door's small window as he was holding the door back. He was soon replaced by Delgato, who fired through the door's window the killer of Andersen in the head.

Soon after this, Snarlof, as he tried to fire through the window, was caught off guard and stabbed with the long sword through his chest and heart by the one bandit, who was hiding under the window in ambush waiting for the right moment. The bandit was then attacked unexpectedly through the window and killed Snarlof in the process. The bandit yet stabbed Snarlof's chest several times with his sword, covering his torso with lots of his own blood, much to Judy's horror. When the bandit stopped, Snarlof, coughing the blood from his mouth after brutal stabbing, fell slowly on his kneels until he got finishing headshot from the same bandit's pistol and his lifeless body fell to the ground.

Bandit then tried to enter in to the inn through the window with the bloody sword and re-loaded pistol, right above of from Snarlof's brutal death horror-stricken Judy and her re-loaded musket.

Bad mistake from the bandit when Judy's instincts made her fire at the bandit with her musket which was aimed to below the bandit's head and jaw. The bullet flied through of the bandit's head coming out from the top of his head. The bandit's instantly dead body fell from the window to the ground inside of the inn, right front of Judy's feets.

The bandit, who revealed to be female bengal tiger, locked her eyes at Judy's eyes staring at them even dead. Judy looked her back in the eyes, holding still smoking musket in her paws and covered now by the tigress blood and deeply shocked by what she had witnessed. She had of course trained to shoot with the guns but she was not used to KILL someone so brutally. She only sat in place paralyzed by the shock and horror.

Meanwhile, Johnson backed off from the window to behind of one of the main hall's dinning table and killed one large grizzly bear bandit who appeared to the window by shooting him through the chest but Johnson was soon killed as well with the shot in the head as he was trying to get to another firing position.

Delgato tried to instead firing back to barricade the inn's door by taking the large and long wooden bench and put it on the door as the push bar.

One of the bandits threw the grenade towards the inn and it exploded next of the wall, damaging severely the outside wall and killing several own in the process. The explosion tossed Judy roughly aside from the window. It also threw some sharp wooden pieces towards Otterton and Bonnie, who were forced to get cover.

The explosion's loud sound did not just snapped Judy back to current situation, but it also hurt Judy savagely in her head. It was the bad side for those ones, mostly the rabbits, who had sharp sense of hearing. Judy snuggled into a ball clenching her teeth out of pain while holding her head.

Dying Bones noticed Judy lying in the ground near of him. As Judy was trying to get back on her feet, Bones groaned in pain as he was trying to reach at her, catching her attention to him.

"You… Were… were you the one who was called by the last name… Hawkins?" Bones asked weakly, to which Judy nodded.

"My chest… my keys… quickly!" Bones aid as he weakly tried to reach his chest.

Judy rushed under the cover to the table, which was fallen over after Bones was shot. The chest wasn't so heavy as Jusy thought but under the fire fight and trying to get the chest to Bones by crawling in the cover wasn't easy to her.

"Here!" Judy said and Bones started weakly to pull the keys to the chest lock to open it.

"I was ordered long time ago to find someone called with the last name Hawkins… even after I got those bandits after me." Bones said while opening the chest and taking the black bottle of rum out of the chest."

"He's after this! He's coming for this! He'll kill us all to get it"

Bones then weakly handed the bottle to Judy. "Take it! Keep it away from him! Do not let him to have it!"

Judy was completely confused of wwhat the cheetah had just said.

"What do you mean? Who are you talking about? Who's coming?" Judy asked confused before Bones grabbed from her shirt and pulled her down next to his head and mouth so that he could whisper into Judy's right ear his last warnings.

"The one whose name is not suitable to mention! Fire-red fur and the ears like the horns of the devil himself, sharp claws like the swords, murderous eyes! The savage lust for fresh flesh and blood! Beware… bevare… THE FOX!" Bones whispered weakly to Judy.

Judy's eyes widened in shock and terror after hearing him whispering to her the word "fox" as the lightning outside went more dense.

Then, Claw Bones finally succumbed to his gunshot wound and died in Judy's hands, leaving Judy to hold the black bottle of rum in her paws in the half-shock while Bonnie and Otterton rushed back to Bones' aid although it was too late for him.

"Sir, we cannot stay in here! We have to leave, now!" Delgato shouted to the Governor, who was hiding behind the barrels since beginning of attack.

"How? The back door is barred!" Leodore shouted nervously.

Judy quickly get over of her shock status and looked everywhere the escape way, until she noticed the stairs.

"Quick! We gotta go! Follow me." She shouted, grabbed from her mother's wirst and rushed to upstairs, although her mother was quite confused that how escaping to the upstairs would help them to escape from the inn.

"I never believe to say this, but I think I'm for this once with that brat in this one!" Leodore shouted and immediately ran after them.

The lion guard retreated from the door after the door was double barred from inside. The guard shouted for Mr. Otterton who tried one last time help Bones, until he reluctantly had to admit to himself that there was nothing what he can do for Bones anymore and rushed with the guard after others.

As he ran towards the stairs, the bullet from the large blunderbuss shot through the door. The bullet narrowly missed Dr. Otterton as he instinctively and reflexively dodged it. The bullet hit to the railing of the stairs sending the small but sharp pieces of wood around, which luckily missed Otterton. Otterton quickly stoop up and ran after the others to the upstairs.

Meanwhile, the attackers knocked the door down and began to storm in smashing everything on their way: chairs, tables, dishes, everything until they found Bones' dead body and his chest open and empty.

In furious for this, they even started to torch the whole inn down.

In the upstairs, Judy and Otterton together quickly pushed open the large window, behind of which was a long fall down to the street. Luckily to Judy and others, Leodore's horse buggies were still in the place under the large window where he had left them when he and his soldiers were returning Judy to her mother.

Because Bonnie was the greatly against the idea of "jump" down of the window, which would certainly mean of breaking the limb or two and became the cripple the rest of the life. Judy made quickly the rope from the bed sheets from her and her mother's beds and the cabinet where they keep more clean sheets.

They heard filthy words and sounds of the broken timber and place settings from downstairs as the bandits were turning roughly the whole place upside down.

"Where is it?!" Shouted the loud and deep voice.

"It gotta be here somewhere!" Shouted another lighter voice.

"Find it! Search it from the upstairs!" Shouted another deep voice, as his shadow in the wall pointed with his finger at the upstairs. The bandits by order stormed roaring to the upstairs.

Hearing that "Search it from the upstairs" and numerous storming footsteps in the stairs, Leodore panicked even more.

"Hurry up! Hurry up, you little brat!" Leodore shouted in childish panic.

Judy groaned in frustation and annoyance at Leodore.

"Do me a favor, governor. Give me five minutes and keep your big mouth shut if you please!" Judy shouted back trying to focus making the rope.

"We don't have five minutes! Hurry up!" Leodore roared in panic and frustation as he watched to the main hall's wall, seeing the silhouettes and shadows growing closer.

After the rope was made long enough, Judy threw it out from the window. It did not touched the street but it was long enough to get them to the ground.

Leodore was, of course due of his cowardice, the first one who grossly jumped to the sheets and landed down next to his buggies and rushed quickly to the place of driver, seemingly no wanting to wait the others.

As the first bandits were about reach the upstairs, Delgato decided to stay behind to buy others enough time to escape. He took the defense possition, loaded quickly his musket and aimed it to the direction of the stairs, firing with it at once as the first bandit appeared from the stairs. The large and obese bandit cried in pain and fell backwords in the stairs, blocking the way from the others temporarily by rolling down the stairs over of his fellow comrades in the stairs.

"Go! Now!" Delgato shouted at the others as he rushed to the corner, loaded his musket again and fired down the main hall and especially at the stairs, trying to force the bandits to back off from the stairs.

Although Judy gave to Delgato all her muskets, ammunation and gunpowder horn and Delgato probably managed to kill few of bandits, their number in men and firepower from the two directions, main room and the stairs, targeted to him overwhelmed him, blocking all his chances to return in fire at them.

And when he tried one last time to return fire, he was shot at first in the right arm, then twice in his chest and finally to the head. Delgato fell dead to the ground.

Judy's eyes widened in panic and horror as Delgato fell dead to the floor right before of her and the bandits managed to move their dead fellow bandit out of their way in the stairs and began to storm to the upstairs.

Judy quickly turned out the lights and grabbed to Delgato's two loaded pistols firing with them at the bandits, killing two more before anyone of them were able to jump in the corners of the upstairs and return to fire. Judy continued firing at the wall next of the stairs, trying to hold the bandits back off.

But soon, much to her horror, she realized that she was out of gunpowder and the bandits were coming for them.

Mr. Otterton and Bonnie were at the same time preparing to jump from the window to the rooftop of Leodore's horse buggies because there was no time to jump to the sheets and land to the ground safely due the bandits.

Besides, Leodore had shredded the rope's sheets with his claws he had pushed out out of fear as he had landed from the window to the ground, probably due of the cowardly act or buying himself time by leaving others to be trapped and killed by the bandits while he himself escaped from the scene.

"I don't know I can do this." Bonnie said worriedly and openly hesitating as she stepped to the window ledge and watched down.

Otterton took the look down, noticing that the horse buggies were leaving as Leodore was cowardly about to leave the scene, caring nothing about them.

"If we do not jump now, Bonnie, we're all left behind to be killed by those damned bandits. There's no time to argue about this anymore." Otterton said and grabbed from Bonnie's paw to encourage her to jump.

"On the count of three, we jump to the wagons rooftop." Otterton said."

"Be ready! One…" Otterton started to counting.

"…Three!" Judy shouted as she with hurry shoved her mother and Otterton through the window and they all landed to Leodore's horse buggies rooftop quite roughly and just in time when Leodore got the horses to run away from the inn.

Some bandits from outside of the inn spotted the fleeing horse buggies, despite not seeing the faces of the runaways and tried immediately stop them from escaping by opening fire at them, aiming at the horses.

Realizing that they were still under the fire range, Leodore whipped the horses run faster, faster and faster to get "him" out of here as fast as they could.

The bandits narrowly missed the horses but continued firing at the horse buggies until wagons reached outside of the border of the fire range.

Bonnie was the only one of them who took the one last and long look behind of them where the Inn of Bunnyburrow was burning to the down, as well as their home.

As Judy, Bonnie and Otterton climbed from the rooftop to inside of the horse buggies, Bonnie sighed deeply saddened for losing her and Judy's home. Bonnie lowered her ears and head down and raised her paws over of her tearing eyes covering them.

Judy looked at her mother with a sad expression on her own face, feeling deeply and heartily sorry for her mother.

However, her curiousness took her over again and she turned her eyes from her mother to the black bottle Claw Bones gave him, looking at it a very long time and wondering that what did Claw Bones mean with a bottle.

* * *

After they arrived to Leodore's mansion, Leodore sent the group of soldiers led by the Mchorn the rhinoceros, the captain of the guard to search for the bandits and arrest them for the assault ot the governor. He suspected them as pirates because the inn of Bunnyborrow was near the beach and even outside of the town, making the place easier prey for those rats of the seas.

However, the soldiers returned with empty hands except the grim news for the Hawkins, who were seeking refuge from the governor's mansion for the night before they'll leave with Otterton and live for some time on Otterton's home until they came up with what's next.

Leodore was immediately and openly against the idea of letting Judy to go inside of his fine mansion, due of today's and the recent troubles and humiliations Judy had caused upon of him and the whole town. But with the help of Otterton, he, Bonnie and even Judy were able to settle down in the mansion for a while.

"I just spoke with the Mchorn the captain of the guard. They searched the whole area around the crime scene but they found no any trace of those blaggard pirates, except the dead ones. They were already gone when the soldiers arrived on the scene and the rain is most certainly covered all traces on the beach, if they came from there." Otterton said, delivering the news from captain Mchorn to Bonnie and Judy, who were in the manion's main room.

"I'm sorry, Bonnie. I am afraid that the old inn of Bunnyborrow has burnt to the ground." Otterton said sadly.

Judy wrapped a blanket around his mother's shoulders, attempting to comfort her, but she was already down for the loss of their home and job.

Judy opened her mouth to say something, but stopped before she got any word out of her mouth and humbly decided that it was best to let her mother be for a moment alone.

Otterton however stayed with her and started to offer some tea what Leodore's servant has brought for them.

"Well, certainly there is a lot of trouble over that one empty black bottle of rum those accursed pirates were probably after as that old cheetah sailor said back in the inn. What ever they wanted about that bottle, I think that the best way to get rid of it is only hand it over to the guards and then you can freely think how you can start all of it over again." Otterton said.

Meanwhile, Judy took the black bottle in her paw from the table and jumped onto the railing in the upstairs of the main hall and started once again to check the bottle in her solitude.

When Judy wiped some dust off from the bottle's side, she discovered some kind of strange writings in the bottle but she was already bored and such of writings didn't interest her. She just began to toss it in the air and catch it from the air with her paw, repeating this next two minutes... until the bottle suddenly slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor, where it smashed into peaces and revealed the old wrapped paper from inside of the bottle.

"Hey!" Otterton yelled as a sound of the broken bottle attracted his attention as she was about to pour some tea in the cup Bonnie was wielding in her paws.

"Judith Laverne Hawkins!" Bonnie yelled in annoyance, thinking that Judy did once again something stupid and irresponsible… and yet broke something in the governor's house. She was not silently hoping that Leodore would not kick them out into the rainy weather.

They found Judy lifting up something from the floor.

"I… I broke a bottle by accident." Judy tried to explain when Otterton and her mother once again gave her the scolding look but Judy quickly showed the piece of papers she found.

"But this was inside of the bottle."

Otterton took the paper harshly from Judy's paw but he became interested very quickly about the old paper and returned to the table, where he lit a lantern in order to obtain the light and opened the paper.

Suddenly, the green light shot out from the paper, turning immediately to room in the green-black darkness.

Otterton yelled out of surprise, which alerted both Judy and her mother.

Fearing the green light coming from the surface of the paper like that to be somekind of odd witchcraft, Otterton threw the paper to the ground and quickly backed far away from it.

They all watched the paper in tension, none of them daring to go near of it.

Suddenly the another green light fluttered from the paper into the airspace of the entiere room and they all watched in fear-like awe as the green light poured across the room, forming to the floor suddenly cloud-like and blue water, green islands and various white, grey or black clouds over it.

"Oh my gosh! It's… it's the map!" Otterton declared in awe.

Judy, Bonnie and Otterton watched in a deep silent and amazement as they stared down to the cloud-like map on their feets, which glowed in many different colors: Mostly as a blue due of the most of the map being the sea aroundings, as a green in the locations of the islands and also as a amber in the locations of the little towns on the peaches of the different islands.

They were greatly amazed that this just happened and that they were in the middle of the holographic map of the Caribbean Sea formed by some strange magic.

"Cool." Judy declared as she watched the map.

Suddenly, Otterton broke the silence.

"Wait! Wait, wait, wait! This is us, the island of Bunnyburrow," Otterton said as he pointed with his finger at the green island on the map.

Judy kneeled down eagerly to see, while Bonnie stayed away from the middle of the room, still uncertain about all of this.

Judy spotted the familiar-looking town and harbor form the beach of the island… plus the familiar mansion behind of the town and next of the sugar plantation… and even her and her mother's home and inn of Bunnyburrow outside of the town. There was even holographic vessels sailing a various distances away from the town and even holographic mammals walking on the roads and the town's streets.

"Wow, how this is even… a possible?" Judy asked, deeply amazed what she was seeing.

She then tapped gently the holographic island with her paw and the map unexpectedly shifted, outlining a path from the harbor of island of Bunnyburrow through the Caribbean sea and numerous islands to some unknown destination which the map did not yet revealed to them.

A bit startled of the unexpected movement of this map, Judy a bit backed off towards her mother, but Otterton was still standing still in middle of the map as it magically shifted.

"Interesting, in this place is the Range of Shark's Dorsal Fin Rocks." Otterton said as he pointed with his finger the range of reefs raising up from the water, which resembled greatly the great white shark's dorsal fins."

"Woah! And there's the Never-Ending Maelstorm." Otterton said as he pointed with his finger at the gigantic water swirl in middle of the Caribbean Sea, which led to the huge crack in the bottom of the sea.

Otterton then continued the exploring the holographic map.

"This is the Hole of the Ocean, very mysterious place in the middle of the Caribbean Sea where the water falls as waterfalls into the great hole in the bottom of the ocean I believe."

"And that's the Graveyard of the Vessels… it's the area of the various disorder lines of range of the rocks above of the surface of the ocean, which is covered by the fog and there's numerous wrecked, sunk or half-sunk vessels plunged or stuck into the rocks. It's also called as Kraken's grab, because some of the sailors who've made it out from there are told in the harbor bars that in middle of rocks is the larger one which resembles almost exactly the head of the gigantic octopus with the blood-red fire corals in the eye halls." Otterton explained to the amazed Hawkins.

Then the shifting started slowly to stop and during of which Otterton spotted that there was oddly the empty hole in the map, which was slowly slowly approaching the place in middle of the room where Otterton had thrown the paper.

"Hey, what's happening?" Otterton asked in confusion as the hole in the map, as the entire map at the same time, stopped right over the old paper

And then, after for moment, in the room appeared out of nowhere unnaturally wind, as strong as hurricane's storm winds, which kind of sucked the whole holographic map back into the paper, which started to glow as green-white light during of the map's disappearing.

Because of being afraid to be sucked into the paper with the holographic map, Judy, Otterton and Bonnie get quickly down and grabbed from something to hold on during of the map's disappearing.

Soon, the wind and the map mysteriously vanished and the glow in the paper slowly faded. The darkness and an eerie silence were upon of this room after this amazing but quite unnatural illusion.

"By my ears, that… that was really awesome!" Judy said with still amazed but the eager smile on her lips.

"What just happened? Otterton asked in disbelief due of all of this unnatural and never-seen-before illusion.

"Maybe… maybe it was just an hallucination created by our tired eyes." Bonnie said as she showed up from behind of the chair in a bit panic.

Otterton lit the oil lamb and walked to pick up the paper from the floor, ignoring of Bonnie's warnings "No, don't touch it" and "It can be bewitched or worse."

Out of his own curiousness about this mysterious map and that inexplicable illusion. After Otterton had picked it up from the floor, he moved the lamb closer of the paper.

the old brown paper was the map as well. The map which revealed the drawn about the island with the exact coordinates about its correct location on the Caribbean Sea.

Otterton immediately began to explore this mysterious map, even though he was not none of best co-driver from his own school times because of his dreams to be the doctor, by comparing this mysterious map's coordinates to other maps. To Otterton's surprise, there was nothing in the other maps with this one's coordinates.

"That's odd. I do not find any islands on this one's coordinates from the other maps." Otterton said, but he still continued to study the map.

Judy went next of him to check the map about the island. She eyed the island out of curiosity, finding some strange marks and writings in the paper's edges and corners and even within the drawing of the island.

"What are those marks and writings around and within that island?" She asked curiously and because she had no knowledge about them because she had skipped many times over the mythology and foreign language lessons in the school or she had not paid enough attention or focusing to them.

"Oh, them? Well, they're some kind of primitive language of the native animals, I think, telling about that island's different areas, landmarks, paths and probably even booby traps set by the primitive animal people and other dangers. They're probably some kind of tips or something." Otterton said.

"But probably all of them are just a fake, I think. And the whole map is just playing map invented by a child."

Otterton sighed and threw the map to the table and walked away from the table towards the window to catch some breath.

Judy, however, was still deeply interested of the map and picked it up from the table to take the look at it.

"Or maybe it isn't, Mr. Otterton." Judy said.

"What makes you say so, young lady Hawkins?" Otterton asked from the window.

"And what you would call that what just happened? A strange vision, or a strange dream?" Judy asked, which caused Otterton to go speechless as he turned to answer to her.

"Even though I do not know what that was, we should right now find ourselves panting in our beds after such of strange dream and I do not even remember us of going to our beds since we arrived here." Judy said kind of sarcastically.

"Besides, the map's paper is quite old and the drawings and all of these marks and writings in this primitive language are so accurately made, so I do not believe that a small child now has so much of desire or even patience to do now so accurate playing map. Besides, told by my teacher, it takes a long process from the little child to learn even something about these ancient marks and the writings in the native language. So, this map cannot be drawing of the little child."

"And again besides, the map is not even from here. It came with that old cheetah sailor and he seemed to take this map and its possible meanings a seriously. Probably that cheetah was long ago with someone who has found this island already but kept it in secret from the world... probably for a good reason or something." Judy explained.

Otterton went more speechless from that explonation and unable to claim the paper as child's drawing or that what just happened Just a hallucination created by their tired eyes or a strange dream anymore.

Young rabbit doe probably just solved the mystery of the map before him or then it was just the guess, which Judy openly admitted.

"BY MY MUSTACHE!" He yelled. "You might be right!"

Otterton took the map from Judy's paws and thought long and deeply everything what Judy had just said.

"A strange vision, or a strange dream… if it was, we should right now find ourselves panting in our beds… very old paper, probably several decades old… ancient marks… primitive native language… not even from here… came with the drunk cheetah… seemed to take it and its possible meanings a seriously… with someone who found this island and kept it in secret… for some good reasons." He muttered quietly, until he went again speechless.

"This map might either be a fake and this island does not even exist… unless… this island… it must… be… It… it… it's…"

Judy's ears jumped upright after realizing it herself before the doctor that what the island on the map really was.

"Treasure Tropolis!" Judy whispered, recognizing it immediately as her ears rose slowly up due getting slowly excited.

"No! It can't be! It's just a legend and that island is not supposed to be in this place in the other maps." Otterton said still in disbelief.

"THAT'S WHY IT IS TREASURE TROPOLIS!" Judy repeated loudly and excited with the widened eyes and wide smile on her lips.

"Flint's Trove? The Greatest Loot of the Seven Seas? Do you know what this means?" Otterton asked from Hawkins enthusiastically.

"It means that judging by the coordinates given by this map, all that treasure is only a boat ride away from here!" Judy said.

"And whoever finds this mysterious island and its the famous trove, will be the most famous person of the entire Caribbean. The most famous explorer and richest mammal of the entire Caribbean… richest than even the king of Zoongland himself, and maybe even…!"

Before Otterton could finish his speech, Judy unexpectedly grabbed the map from his paws, wrapped it together and then pocked the map to her jacket's pocked turning to her mother.

"Mom, this is it! This is the solution and an answer to all of our problems!" Judy said eager smile on her face.

However, the expression on Bonnie's face wasn't as eager about the idea as Judy's

"Judy, there is absolutely no way…" Bonnie tried to protest.

"Come on, mom!" Judy interrupted, begging in her mind her mother to listen to her even for once in her life. "Don't you remember? All those stories about this?"

"That's all what they are, Judy. Just a stories, fairy tales, made by the old daft sailors for the superstitious animals." Bonnie said tyring to talk sense to her daughter.

Bonnie had also heard those stories about the legendary captain Flint's mysterious trove and the entiore island but she never actually, most likely due of her job and her overly troubled motherhood, believed in them herself before.

"Don't you get it, mom? What about all those stories about this famous treasure are not just a stories but true after all? This map, and the vision it just showed to us, are the clear proof about it! Don't you see how useful such of knowledge and this map could be to us? With the help of that treasure, we could even rebuild the Inn of Bunnyburrow a hundred times over!" Judy argued, worrying that her mother possibly and stubbornly nothing else than ignores even this good reason to go look for the treasure."

"Well, this is-it's just-oh, my gosh." Bonnie sighed deeply, still unwilling to believe all of this and those stories she calls "fairy tales" of the much talked about treasure.

"Judith Laverne Hawkins, you're certainly out of your mind, and only because of one old piece of paper and an old fairy tale." Bonnie said exasperated that her own daughter would not listen to her own mother's words of reason in this case.

Bonnie then turned to Otterton, seeking desperately for his support in order to talk some sense to her stubborn daughter and speak her out of this she calls "madness."

"Otterton, would you please explain to her how ridiculous this whole thing is?"

Judy saw clearly that Otterton also had scolding expression on his face.

"It's totally preposterous, young Mrs. Hawkins, traversing the entire Caribbean Sea full of many dangers all alone." He said.

Judy's ears dropped down and she rolled her eyes, snorting out of irritation, knowing that she had lost to the adults.

"Now at last, we hear some sense." Bonnie said smugly and she smiled victoriously.

"And that's why I'm going with her." Otterton suddenly and unexpectedly said.

"OTTERTON?!" Bonnie exclaimed in shock and disbelief.

Judy's eyes widened and her ears jumped up in surprise at this sudden turn of events. Judy's face brightened for this.

"At last there's even somebody who's agree with me and my ideas!" Judy exclaimed in deep delight.

"Indeed, young Mrs. Hawkins. The map and the strange vision or illusion it just showed to us may be in fact the proof that all those stories about this island and the treasure are really true. That island is not seen in any other maps, so that must be the only one object which will show us a direct way to there, although I have no idea how it did so moment ago in its holographic form." Otterton said, until he grabbed to the paper and pen and started eagerly to listing the things they were gonna need.

"Everything what we need to get there is the ship, the big one, also the captain and a crew... and one the most needed thing… money… to finance this expedition." Otterton said and started again to think deeply, seeking the solution for that problem from his mind.

"If I have some extra in my savings in the town's bank or if Leodore can borrow us a little money, I believe that I can finance this expedition and …"

Bonnie interrupted Otterton's speech immediately, still disbelieving to this the whole idea of going to search for the treasure which is probably not even exist.

"And why do you even believe that Leodore would give us some money to finance this… this… this whole ridiculous thing which got its beginning from the old piece of paper and old-fashioned fairy tale invented by some sailors." Bonnie questioned.

"That's why I'm going too!" Leodore suddenly yelled as he suddenly arrived in the room through of the doors, much to trio's surprise.

He was most surely listened them secretly behind the doors and rushed immediately inside after hearing something about the treasure map, Flint's trove and Judy and Otterton's plans of the voyage after the treasure."

"Leodore?! Not you too! Do you honestly even believe to that old fairy tale?!" Bonnie shouted in shock and disbelief.

"Don't even bother to ask from him, mom." Judy said deeply, openly annoyed of Leodore's sudden appearace, he having eavesdropped them and his eager wish to come with them.

Judy already knew why he would come with them. The governor always had the deep and over-effective interest in the word of "gold" and its meaning but honestly, Leodore never had anything rational use even for the money, what he already had a lot from the recent trading and is stored in the multiple chests in the town's bank. It was his high secret which Judy "accidentally" discovered some months ago. Leodore liked only gathering more money and to be the richest animal in this down.

However, Judy was a bit surprised that Leodore didn't at first demand the map from her, selfishly claming even it to be his property too.

"As the governor of this town and this island, I'll use some of my savings to finance the expedition; I'll prepare my five finest galleons, hire a captains and a crews for the voyage to search that big treasure..." Leodore proudly said, ordering his servants to pack everything necessarily and even unnecessarily needed, although even though the decision had not yet even been made but he didn't care.

Bonnie could not believe her ears or even her own eyes. All of them, even her own daughter, were sided as one against her.

"You all cannot be serious!"

"Yes we are, by 100%, Bonnie." Otterton said. "A bit of free sea air will make good for the mind under the grey everyday concerns and let the spirit to taste the free life on the sea and the adventure."

Bonnie wasn't still sure about of all of this. The worried expression suddenly appeared on her faces, and it only went from bad to worse as Judy grabbed from her paw with the eager expression and smile on her face.

"It would be a fun, mom. Sailing freely on the seas as I've always wanted to do as a little child. Especially when there's the prize and our good purpose with it waiting for us in the end of the boat ride." Judy said in tension.

"Yes and besides, I also have a use for my own share of the treasure. For example, I have some problems with the few high debts and I've such of feeling that some of the animals, for whom I am in debt for those monies I needed to build my own fine hospital in the city, could probably even pay to someone for my head." Otterton worriedly explained but still kept the eager smile on his face.

"And all my life I've been waiting for an opportunity like this to to be free of debts, and here it is screaming. This means that with my own share of the treasure, I can finally to be free of debts!" Otterton said as he jumped eagerly and happily on the table and started to dance on the table eagerly at the end.

"You're luckiest otter Dr. Emmitt Otterton. You're lucky! You're lucky! You're so lucky! No more debts! No more worries! No more angry animals knocking at the door demanding their money nor my head! No more threats! No more…"

This continued until Bonnie had more than enough of all of this

"OKAY! OKAY! ENOUGH! YOU'RE ALL GROUNDED!" Bonnie shouted in deep frustration, as Otterton rubbed his foot on the surface of the table a little embarrassed.

Bonnie let out the deep sigh and rubbed the back of her neck, probably trying to gather her thoughts and calm down a bit.

Judy knew exactly, why her mother was openly against this whole idea. Her eager smile faded from her lips and her ears dropped down out of pity she felt for her mom.

Her mother either partially or not at all believed anything of this, except that the treasure might be of help to rebuild their home and get her job back, even though it means going back to the gray and problematic everyday before all of this happened.

But she put everything else aside because she was deeply worried about her own daughter's safety…

…and this is why she was so unwilling to believe all of this… or then unwilling to let her little treasure (Judy) go to such of dangerous trip of the seas from which she may possibly never return to her.

Judy then opened her mouth.

"Mom, look." Judy started without any hesitation, with a surprisingly remorseful tone.

"I know that I keep messing everything up. And I know...that I let you down all of time… and that you do not trust me in anything… and I am not worth of your trust neither your protection in my own problems"

Sensing the sincerity in her daughter's words, Bonnie's frustrated face softened as she listened her daughter.

"But right now…" Judy continued, nearly with tearful eyes. "… this is my chance to make it up to you. I know that it is a big risky but I'm ready to take it… for you... for us… for our future. All what I want right now is to be useful and good daughter than a walking disaster. Now I'm gonna set things right." Judy finished. Her a determined expression on her face and her eyes told Bonnie that her daughter meant it and that she intended to remain in her decision.

Bonnie stared at her daughter for a moment, not saying anything. She only gave her daughter the infamous gaze.

Otterton watched this heartfelt moment with sympathy… Leodore didn't. He bitterly and prejudiced believed that this bunny can never be anything else than just a walking disaster and the black sheep of her own family.

Otterton then reluctantly intervened to the heartfelt moment.

"Bonnie? If I may?" Otterton beckoned Bonnie to come to him.

Otterton and Bonnie then withdrew a little farther away from Judy to talk two alone and then Otterton began by whispering to speak with Bonnie.

"You said yourself in back in inn, you've tried everything for her. There are much worse remedies than a few character-building months on the seas." Otterton said.

"Are you saying this because it's the right thing for my little Judy or because you really wanna go for your own purposes?" Bonnie asked, still doubting of all of this what had already happened and what she probably couldn't anymore make undone.

"For the life without a haunting debts for me in here, I really, really, really, really want to go. And it's the right thing… for your little girl to grow up." Otterton said.

Bonnie sighed deeply. She did not felt herself to be ready to let Judy go due of still being uncertain of this.

Otterton gently placed his paw under of Bonnie's chin and turned her to look at him.

"Bonnie, look at me. To be honest, I'm not trying to force you to let your daughter go to this trip because of my own purposes. It would only be selfish action and even the exploitation of others to which I will never succumb as a honest otter and as a good friend of yours. All what I'm trying to do is trying to guide you as best as I can to see what is good and right thing for you daughter and then on the basis of it to make the right choice. What you say?"

Bonnie lowered her head, realizing that she had lost, although she was still reluctant to admit it, but everything what she wanted mostly was the best for her little Judy.

Of course, she knew that Judy was half of her entire life since and during of her childhood dreamed of sailing on the seas after the incredible adventures and discoveries, inspired by those countless rumors and stories told by the old sailors.

Bonnie thought about this yet for a moment until she finally came to the conclusion that maybe Judy was old enough to go, although it was so hard for herself to let her go.

Bonnie then sighed deeply and turned to Judy with a worried expression and her ears lowered down behind of her head.

"Oh, Judy. My little sweet Judy hawkins." Bonnie said tearfully.

Bonnie raised her paw gently on Judy's right and looked tearfully into her violet eyes. Judy, with her own ears behind of her head, closed her eyes and leaned her head against of her mother's paw to feel its gentle, motherly and loving touch on her cheek which made her to feel good. And then, she looked back to her mother's eyes.

"Judy, I… I just… You're everything I have left. I just don't wanna lose you too." Bonnie said, running her paw down of Judy's cheek in a motherly manner.

Judy took gently and comforting from her mother's paw with both of her paws.

"Mom… You won't. I promise. I'll make you proud of me." Judy said, giving her mother a reassuring smile and Bonnie smiled back to her.

"I'm already." She whispered.

Bonnie and Judy gazed at each other for a while, understanding and love flowing between their eyes, until Bonnie gave motherly kiss to her daughter's forehead and.

Otterton intervened once again with reluctance in the heartfelt moment between the mother and daughter.

"Well, ahem, there we are, then." He said with the smile and then turned to the governor.

"Mr. Leodore, we have decided. We'll beging preparations at once. You and I, we have to work together as financiers of this voyage and we both have to give half of our savings to finance this voyage and we need only one ship, captain and the crew to be ready for the voyage as soon as possible."

Leodore did not like an idea that he had to work together with these rabbits and the otter who was a doctor, not a banker. He thought that he should have demand that treasure map for himself from that "brat" bunny in the first place and then to leave in "his" own style to search for the treasure with the navy of warships and merchant ships in case of the possible pirate attacks and not with one merchant ship, being the easy prey for the pirates during the trip.

However, he only snorted in annoyance but but agreed to with reluctance.

Then Otterton turned to Judy.

"Judy my girl, better to make yourself ready, because very soon we'll be off to the GREATEST ADVENTURE OF OUR LIFE!"

* * *

 **And it was the second chapter of TREASURE TROPOLIS. I hope you enjoyed it.**  
 **See ya next time soon.**


	3. Chapter 3: Zoopaniola

**Third Chapter of TREASURE TROPOLIS is now out!  
** **Enjoy.**

* * *

After a week or two of preparation…

Everything was now ready for the voyage.

Otterton had ordered the ride in the horse carriage to take her and Judy to the town's harbor where the prepared ship was waiting for them.

While waiting for the buddies, Dr. Otterton dressed himself into stylish green clothes and his brown three-cornered hat he had bought from the town's clothing store yesterday for the journey. Judy however did not wanted voluntarily to leave according to him to buying a new clothes for the trip. She only wanted to go dressed to her own usual tomboy style, until she was taken to according to him by her mother, who wasn't going to take part of the trip but wanted her and Judy to keep a company for Otterton, much to Judy's annoyance.

When the horse buggies were right on their way to Otterton's home, where Otterton had allowed Bonnie to live while he and Judy were gone, Judy and Bonnie were having their last moment together before it was time for Judy to go an adventure she had been waiting for two weeks since discovery of the treasure map.

"Judy, I'm really proud to see you growing up to a young woman I hoped you to grow up when you were my little girl, even though not by the way like this. And… I know well I can't anymore change your mind abbout this, Judy, but… I'm still a bit uncertain and even worried about this. So, is this it what do you really want?

Judy groaned, probably a hundredth time when she realized that she and her mother hand to go this over about hundredth time within two weeks.

"Mom, seriously, we've been already over this. Of course I do, but remember mom that I'm not doing this just because for me but also for you. For both of us. That's why I'm going to this adventure I've been waited my whole life." Judy said a bit frustrated.

Bonnie sighed deeply.

"I know, Judy. But, I believe that you know that all what I'm just saying or reminding to you, is that the sea is so large place and nobody knows what kind of dangers it may contain." Bonnie said.

Judy only shrugged.

"If you meant the sea monsters. Come on, mom. I stopped to believe to such of fairy tales about the sea monsters dwelling in the deepest depths of the ocean, attacking the unlucky ships from bellow, picking the sailors off from the decks with the giant tentacles and drag the vessel to a watery grave when I turned eight, okay." Judy chuckled.

The worried expression, however, did not faded away from Bonnie's face.

"I don't meant them, Judy. I meant those "real" dangers what the sea can contain. You know; Bloodthirsty sharks, burning jellyfish, fierce hurricanes, deadly waterspouts, gigantic waves, flesh-eating savages on the strange islands, sharp and dramatic reefs ... and worst of all, the cruel pirates." Bonnie listed

Judy shrugged once again.

"That might be even far more better than a boring life as waitress, cleaner and diswahser." Judy said.

Bonnie quickly gace to her daughter a bit stern look, because her life has been mostly like that before Inn of Bunnyburrow's destruction. From her mother's stern look, what Judy thought that did she just went too far gone and taking an innocent grinn, drobbing her ears against back of her head and put her paws behind of her back.

"No offence, or course." Judy chuckled nervously.

"I mean it, Judy. The pirates, they are not like in your childhood games. The pirates, both prey and predators, they have no heart neither compassion towards the others animals. They're cruel, sadistic, bloodthirsty, back-stabbing poison of the sea, who are driven fowards in their miserable cruel life by their eternal lust for gold and who would not hesitate to cut the throat from anyone so innocent and defenceless one who steps on their way. That's why I'm worried about you, because what about your ship will cross paths with the another vessel with the real pirates?"

For the third time, Judy only shrugged.

"Mom, I've already learned to use, load and fire with the muskets and pistols. I know what you think about such of fire arms, but if that really happens that we're under attack of the real pirates, does it makes you feel better if I fight them with the rest of the crew from the the safest place?" Judy asked.

Then Bonnie remembered something else very importand she wanted for one more time to remind to Judy... relating to Claw Bones' last words before his death back in the Inn of Bunnyburrow during of attack.

"And Judy, I know I might be a bit overprotective with my words in this case, but I want you to be aware for the such of predators like the foxes around of you. The foxes are the worst kind of all predators. I myself have not had very pleasant experiences with foxes." Bonnie said.

Bonnie meant it because she remembered well her own encounter with the foxes several years ago when she was just a little child. She was once about to be robbed by the several teen foxes on the road as she was walking towards home from school. And when she had resisted by refusing to hand over the delicious cakes, which she had in the basket, they had taken the basket from her paws by force, and one of them yet "as her reward," struck with his claws Bonnie at her face, scratching her left cheek, threateningly warning her not to resist them in the next time or otherwise.

Bonnie still had those scars on her cheek, even though there has grown some fur to cover them.

"You remember that old cheetah sailor's last warning to us before we were under attack?"

Judy rolled her eyes, remembering well Claw Bones' last warning about the certain fox he was fleeing.

"Mom, even though the foxes you encountered long time ago acted like that, or that we're supposed to beware the certain one that old cheetah was fleeing, that doesn't mean that all the foxes are like one of them, even though neither am I the fan of them." Judy said simply.

"Besides, nobody is not now so stupid to let the fox, no matter how nicely and honestly the one would act, aboard the mercant ship full of the honest sailors, so you do not need to be worried about that, mom." Judy added.

But still, the worried expression did not faded from Bonnie's face.

"That's exactly what I'm worried about, Judy. That "not all of them" means also that some or at least most of them are worst kind of all predators, Especially the ones living under of the piracy. Those ones are the most pure evil, cunning, even bloodthirsty, manipulative and back-stabbing ones of all the pirates without pity or compassion towards anyone else." Bonnie said and landed her paw on Judy's shoulder.

"Just promise me to be careful if you ever encounter during of your trip even one single fox from which you cannot be completely or not at all sure." Bonnie begged.

But before Judy was able to answer, horse carriages arrived on the scene catching her attention and stopped in front of them.

"Come on, Judy. It's time to go." Otterton called as he climbed to the horse buggies with his packed baggage.

"Just a minute!" Judy shouted back, before she turned back to her mom.

"Okay mom, this is it. It's time for me to go." Judy said, not noticing that her purple eyes were getting watery.

As well as were Bonnie's eyes as she looked at her daughter for the last time.

"One thing yet, Judy." Bonnie said and raised her paws behind of her neck.

She picked from around of her neck a lanyard, to which was attached the golden locket. It was the wedding gift from her husband, which she had not thrown away even after her husband had just left all of them behind to leave for the seas.

Bonnie handed it over to Judy's paw, and Judy took it from her paw humbly and opened it.

To her delight, there was a pic about her and her mother from the time when she was seven years old little bunny.

"Let it be at the same time your inspiration why you are doing all of this, as well as your lucky charm in this long and probably dangerous adventure and my gift from my heart to you. As you know, it was the wedding gift to me from your father, but I managed to come up with an entirely new use for it soon after your father just left us." Bonnie explained.

Judy lowered her head, closed her eyes and dropped her ears after her father and her sudden leaving were once again mentioned. This caused her to take a disappointed look on her face.

Bonnie placed her paw comfortingly against her daughter's left cheek and looked at her into her eyes when she opened them after feeling her mother's touch on her cheek.

"So, what ever happens, promise to your mother to keep it always on your neck and in save." Bonnie said before taking her paw off from Judy's cheek.

With these words, Judy slowly closed the locket and put in around her neck. She then wrapped her right paw's fingers into fist around of the locked and landed her left paw over of her fist, placing the locket in the place of her own heart and closed her eyes for while.

Then she opened her eyes and looked at her mother.

"I promise." Judy said humbly. This gift from her mother was gonna mean to her so much as long as this entire trip lasts, like having the loving mother always on her side even though they're gonna be for a long time away from each others.

Judy promised to her mother, not only to be careful but also to protect the locket like a living thing from anything during of this trip 'til she returns to her.

Bonnie then pulled her daughter closer into the loving hug between the mother and her only daughter. Both of them closed their eyes and dropped their ears down and felt the warmth of each others.

Bonnie rubbed her cheek against her beloved daughter's left cheek and Judy, tightened her grib around of her mother while burrying her face into her mother's shoulder. Both of them were quite unwilling to let go of each other, although they both already knew that what they had accomplished, could not be undone anymore.

They broke from the hug, but still hold each others from the paws.

"I love you, Judy Hawkins. From the deepest depths of my heart." Bonnie said and placed motherly kiss to Judy's forehead.

"I love you too, mom. I will miss you." Judy said and kissed her mom on her cheeks, before she picked and lifted up her baggage and went after Otterton.

Judy climbed inside of the carriages and soon Mr. Otterton and Judy Hawkins departed from Otterton's home and Bonnie.

Before the carriages get to any further from Otterton's house, Judy paid yet a very last one look behind watching her mother out of the buggies's window. Her mother was still standing outside of the house watching after her daughter and waving with the tearful eyes goodbye at her.

"Goodbye and good luck, my dear! I miss you already!" Bonnie tearfully said after her departing daughter.

"Goodbye, mom! I love you!" Judy said waving back to her mother so long as she could until the carriages disappeared to the horizon from Bonnie's sight.

"Lord, keep my daughter safe 'till her return." Bonnie whispered.

* * *

After the long travel (and boring by Judy's mind,) Judy and Otterton finally arrived to the town's harbor.

After taking their baggages they exited from the horse carriages and went to find the ship which was prepared for this trip.

Judy felt briefly a bit awkward since she and Otterton entered to the town from the town's gates guarded by Leodore's soldiers, who strenly stared at her.

It was because a few weeks ago in the gray and rainy day when Judy had once and accidentally knocked down from a steep road the waggons full of stone slabs, which was rushed uncontrolled and unstoppable through of the streets full of mammals, who barely dodged the rushing waggons. And then, it bumped into the supports of the large building, which was in middle of the construction phase, snapping them in half and right below of the side where most of the weight was right now.

This prompted the building to collapse grumbling to the ground and just around the same time as Leodore was passing the area in a horse drawn carriage. The building collapsed right next to the carriages and one wooden timber collapsed unexpectedly to Leodore just over the carriages, crushing them in front of Leodore in half.

This of course caused the horses fly off the handle and ran away from the scene, pulling Leodore's lowly driver after them and slowly falling half of the carriage threw Leodore outside into the muddy puddle, messing his combed and trimmed mane and finest clothes.

Leodore did not needed to guess who was "by the accident" behind of this destruction, whole mess and ruining his mane and clothes. So after Judy was caught, he furiously threated to order a permanent ban to the town upon Judy if she does not pay compensation for the damage that she "accidentally" caused, including his mudden clothes.

Hawkins family barely got together the compensation paid to Leodore, but afterwards and after finding out why this happened, Bonnie had placed Judy under house arrest for the six months as punishment for what she did in the town.

Well, it was just a bad memory which everybody wanted to forget.

Both Judy and Otterton then sniffed the fresh air into their noses, until Otterton opened to speak to Judy.

"Well, Judy, because we two haven't spoken to each other during of my numerous visits on your mother's inn before all of this, I'm thinking that this whole thing should be a wonderful opportunity for two of us to get to know one another. You know what they say, familiarity species, um... well, contempt, but, in our case..." Otterton said before a bit bored Judy cut him off from his words before he could finish.

"Look, Doc. There's a lot of different platforms in this harbor and only onww right ship in middle of the dozens others or similiar ones so we have a lot of walking and searching. So what if we just try to find the ship which that big pussy-cat Leodore promised us to be ready for to departure when we arrive. Okay?" Judy asked and continued walking. Otterton shrugged and followed her.

The harbor was a big and bustling place full of great and high-masted ships and streets and docks were filled by a hundreds of different kind of animals. Either as harbor workers working with the different kinds of cargo on the docks and port warehouses, passing horse carriages full of the usual civilians or then a richest mammals, several dozen of civilians of this town and passenger from the passenger ships, the partols of the red-coated soldiers ansd marines but mostly sailors who always paids a visits in the harbor's bars to drink some rum.

Judy and Otterton passed on their way the bar, in front of which two sailors, large african lion and polar bear were in the fierce game of paw wrestling while some other sailors, tigers, elephants, indian rhinos and wolves were sitting around the duo and the with excitement they made a bet about the winner.

Both of predators growled while trying to fiercely beat each others, until the polar bear won, twisting the lion's paw against the table so that the lion let out the loud roar out of the pain, making Judy a bit startled so that she backed off a little from the large animals. Those ones who bet for the lion, made the load groaning voices of defeat while those who bet for the polar bear who raised his paw to air victoriously, they cheered loudly.

Judy also spotted elsewhere, in the dark alley behind of the large pile of wooden boxes and barrels, where the one sneaky jackal was trying from behind of the barrel to pilfer a money bag from the large polar bear's grip, while the white-furred bear was focused to held a stupid rich arctic shrew businessman on his paw while in the small chair sitting shrew was talking to another shrew businessman, who was sitting in his own small chair on the paw of the grizzly bear bodyguard opposite of the arctic shrew's group.

However, their business was disturped after that Jackal was caught in the action by the arctic shrew's other polar bear bodyguards and for attempt of pilferage, the jackal got badly beated by ten of the arctic shrew businessman's polar bear bodyguards while he continued the businesss with presumably his business partner.

"Ow! That gotta hurt." Judy said after witnessing the jackal's beating at the mercy of twenty large polar bear firsts.

"Judy? Are you coming?" Otterton called from the distance away from Judy.

After hearing with her sharp sense of hearing Otterton's call, even in middle of this noise area, to evade of being detected by these business shrews and their gigantic bodyguards, who presumably engaged in somekind of illegal smuggling and exchange trading with the stolen stuff in the shadows, Judy quickly jumped off from the pile of cargo and rushed quickly after Otterton.

They however, went astray in the large crowds so they had to ask the direction from the some sailors or the harbor workers so they stopped to ask from one giraffe and one male african lion harbor workers about the direction of the ship what Leodore was preparing.

"Second berth on your right!" Giraffe worker said pointing with his finger to the direction, after he had checked out the location of what Judy and Otterton were searching from the highs where only his head could reach.

"You can't miss it." Old lion worker said before he get back to work with a giraffe.

Judy thanked them and walked away.

As Otterton was about pass them, the lion unexpectedly spat to Otterton's clothes.

"Hey Doc. You better to change your finest doctor clothes into the sailor's clothes. Or else the sea birds come eagerly to poo on them." Lion joked before he burst out laughing. Even Judy giggled of the joke.

"What's wrong with the green?" Otterton asked about his clothes before going after Judy.

"Are these clothes really inappropriate for the maritime landscape. Maybe l should never have listened to that female indian elephant saleswoman and her "so-called-knowledge" about the fashion and her "so-called-fast" sloth partner. That elephant said that even the birds and sailors will be jealous about these clothes after seeing them before of their very own eyes, but "But there might be something else" she said but it took from that sloth an hour to bring even this suit and couple hours more to bring even one another suit…" Otterton muttered to himself.

"I didn't know what to do. I had the hurry to work so I did to..."

Judy had stop the walking for the moment to watch the handsome ships, trying at the same time to figure out that which one of them was the one what they were looking for, until Otterton accidentally collided her and pushed her forward.

Judy took briefly a blaming look towards a doctor.

"Sorry, Judy." Otterton apologized until he watched himself around.

Then he got at first surprised expression and after that the eager smile to his face.

"Oh, Judy! Here we are. This is our ship. May I introduce you... ZOOPANIOLA!" Otterton said, referring with his paw the ship which was right front of them.

"Wow!" Judy whispered.

Zoopaniola was the finest and fastest ship in the Leodore's fleet. It was three-masted frigate with thirty-six guns and almost one hundred men. The crew was already loading the cargo from the docks to the ship or checking the ship's sails in the masts before sailing.

There, on the ship's main deck, was a captain-looking large and muscular stern-looking cape buffalo, wearing a fancy red officer coat and black three-cornered hat. This ape buffalo was right now supervising the ship's departure preparations and shouting the orders or instructions to the crew all around of the ship.

"Out of my way! Make way for me!" Someone yelled behind of Judy and Otterton.

It was Leodore himself pushing his way rudely through of the sailors, civilians and harbor workers. The governor was followed by the sheep who was pulling forward the large carts full of stuff what the governor had planned to take with him to the voyage. Lots of necessary, but mostly unnecessary. The governor scolded harshly the sheep servant if she was walking after him slowly like slug.

The governor was also followed by about two dozen red-coated soldiers. Mostly tigers, wolves and couple grizzly bears. And these two dozen were led by the captain Mchorn himself.

Soon his eyes chatched Otterton and Judy walking towards the ship.

"Ah, Dr. Emmit Otterton and you… uh (a brief awkward silence after seeing Judy) Little brat. Uh, I meant… uh… was the name… Juicy? Jugular? Juliana? Jane? June? Judas? Sushi? Churry? Cherry? Honey?"

Judy felt a bit offense that Leodore just called her with the list of such of nicknames.

"It's Judith Laverne Hawkins but just Judy to you, you big sloth-brained pussy-cat." Judy said, hoping that her comment to Leodore's nicknames for her insulted him as well as his nicknames for her did to her.

Leodore growled at this but he didn't care. He turned his attention to his mighty Hispaniola.

"Well, here we are. Preparations have been made and Zoopaniola is on schedule ready for the voyage… and hopefully as soon as possible." Leodore said and ordered his sheep servant to keep hurry with the stuff.

Judy was the first who climbed aboard the ship, watching amazed and with the eager smile on her face the ship.

"How cool is this?" She asked from herself.

Suddenly, Judy was so preoccupied with her surroundings that she bumped into the large fat warthog sailor who wore red-brown waistcoat, brown pants and black hat. Warthog turned around to see who had just bumped into him and saw Judy standing behind of his back and, much to his annoyance, Judy was accidentally stepped on his tail.

"Oh, sorry about that! I didn't I didn't mean to…" Judy tried to apologize and stepped off from warthog's tail, but the warthog completely turned to her and began to shout towards Judy's face… with the nasty-smelling breath.

"Fuera de aquí, conejo! (Get lost, bunny!)" Sailor yelled.

"Say again?" Judy asked greatly confused but mostly disgusted by the warthog's breath and wiped off with her paw the spit, which had flied from the warthog's mouth at her face while shouting, from her face.

Otterton then arrived at the scene and witnessed the warthog yelling at Judy for an innocent accident.

"Allow me to handle this." Otterton said and turned to the warthog.

"Sal de ti mismo, cerdo! (Get lost yourself, pig!) Otterton yelled, which surprisingly leaved the warthog confused.

"Cerdo? Soy un cerdo? (Pig? I am a pig?)" Warthog said and departed, confused and affronted.

Judy turned to Otterton and attempt to ask out of curiosity, but Otterton had already read her thoughts.

"That warthog was probably from Zoopain and the language what I spoke was zoopanish. If you were paid more focus and attention in the language lessons in your school, you would know how to speak it." Otterton said.

"llorón. (Crybaby.)" Otterton added after the warthog.

"Enough the lessons! I want this ship on the move as soon as possible, no matter who's the captain." Leodore said impatiently and turned to the officer.

"Good morning, captain. Everything ship-shape?" Leodore asked the buffalo.

"Shipshape it is, sir, but I'm not the captain in this ship. The captain's aloft." Buffalo said to a bit surprised and confused Leodore and pointed with his paw up to the mast.

Everyone in the trio, Leodore, Judy and Otterton then raised their heads to look up.

They saw a slender female otter, who wore black pants and a blue captain's waistcoat, making her way down through the shrouds with the such of acrobatic leaps, stunts and landings from shrouds to shrouds and even twirling in the air

She then landed quite effortlessly to the deck, standing straight up.

"Wow. She's good." Judy whispered to herself, quite amazed by such of moves.

Otterton's eyes were widened by surprise, not because of this female otter's moves but her sudden appearance to the scene and Otterton himself looked at her greatly surprised… like he had not saw her for while.

"Susan? Susan Otternsia" Otterton said, which turned Leodore's and Judy's surprised faces and by the surprise widened eyes him.

"Wait, you know this woman?" Judy asked out of curiosity.

"Oh yes, I know her. She's Susanne Otternsia but by the nickname she's just Susan. We two, me and her, met each others for a long time ago in the school when we were just the children. We two were best friends, even though we studied to different professions, and we always spent some time together after the school… then… until our paths… just…" Otterton said.

"Woah, woah, woah! Wait for minute, Dr. Otterton! Did you just hired your... old childhood friend, maybe your girlfriend, as a captain of MY SHIP?!" Leodore yelled in frustration.

Otterton seemed to have in his face the expression of disapproval about that comment from Leodore.

"Of course I hired the captain and the crew. But unlike with the crew, I never thought that my old childhood friend, not girlfriend yet, was the one of many others who volunteered to captain of this ship. Lucky to her to get the job from this ship." Otterton said with the expression on his face turned from the anger targeted at Leodore to smile targeted at Susan.

"I thought that I was supposed to hire a captain and the crew to this ship." Growled Leodore in disgust that now he has to take orders from the otter.

"Yes, or in fact, we were BOTH supposed to hire a captain and the crew together as we did by funding this voyage and ship, but you instead were "too busy" in packing all of this mostly useless stuff for the Voyage. So, I did the most of the job by hiring a captain and the crew for you so that everything would go according to schedule." Otterton said back and and referred Judy to follow him.

"Yes, the girl captain, and…"

Suddenly, a falling bucket full of water lands on his head from above, getting his finest governor clothes wet.

"Sorry, redcoat!" Yelled sarcastically the ram sailor from the mast before the ram laughed heartily while watching Leodore's clumsy moves blinded by the bucket.

"… and clumsy crew." Leodore muttered sarcastically and walked after Otterton and Judy the bucket still on his head.

Meanwhile, Susan, as Otterton called her, walked towards buffalo, who immediately took stand at attention before her.

"Mr. Bogo, I've checked this miserable ship from stem to stern, and, as usual, it's... spot on. Can you get nothing wrong?" Susan asked, changing her voice from stern to soft while speaking at him.

"You're flattering me, captain." Mr. Bogo answered, bowing at her and removing his hat in a gesture of thanks.

Susan turned and much to her surprise, she saw that right front of her was standing another otter in the doctor's finest clothes. Susan stared at him curiously for a moment, then she smiled after she recognized the otter

"Ah… if I remember correctly. Dr. Emmitt Otterton, I presume?"

"Uh… ahem… Yes, Susan Otternsia. It's me. It's nice to know that you still remember me." Otterton bowing to her and removing his own hat in a gesture of greetings.

"Otterton dear, it has been a while since we last met. How did you even know that I was going to be a captain of this vessel?" Susan asked with the smile.

"I didn't. This was just a lucky coincidence." Otterton answered.

"Anyway, it's very good see you again after so long time since our depart to our different paths after ending our school time." Otterton said, earning the gentle smile from Susan.

"And who's your clumsy companion with the bucket on his head?" Susan asked, smiling mischievously as she pointed with her finger at Leodore.

"Clumsy companion?! Excuse me, lady, but I am…" Leodore tried to say through of the bucket which was barely heard by the others. Hovewer, he stumbled over something and flew onto the deck, knocking his head (inside of the bucket) to the deck.

This got Judy to mischievously but quietly giggle at leodore's clumsiness.

Susan referred Bogo to low his arm at her level and Susan jumped onto his arm. Bogo then lifted his arm up so that Susan was on the level of Leodore's head.

"Helloooo? Anybody home? Can you hear me?" Susan said sarcastically and knocked four time to the bucket, much to Leodore's annoyance.

Judy could not hold herself anymore and holding from her stomach she burst out laughing at Leodore and Susan's good sense of humor.

Otterton shook his head at Judy's laughing but could not help but smile himself.

"Ouch! Hey! Of course I hear you! Stop that banging!" Leodore said, getting flustered by such of treatment, and tried to pull the bucket off his head but it seemed to be stuck in place.

Susan then walked to Bogo's right arm and reffered him to grab from the bucket with both of his hands and get prepared.

"If I may to help your companion, Dr. Otterton, the removing the stuck bucket from the head isn't so hard if you just have some little help and… muscular strength."

By Susan's node to Bogo, Bogo pulled the bucket off from Leodore's head with force.)

"That's it. Here you go." Susan said with the innocent grin.

Without any thankful expression on his face and rubbing his neck and head, Leodore turned to Susan, growling at her simultaneously in pain and annoyance.

"Excuse me, lady, but I could have done that by myself! I did not needed the fat buffalo-butt to rip off my head instead of that blasted bucket" Leodore yelled in anger at Susan and angrily frowning and snorting Bogo, which Susan ignored.

Suddenly, Susan crabbed from Leodore's paw and shaked it as a greeting.

"Anyway, Governor Leodore. We may not yet have met personally so allow me to introduce myself to you. I'm captain Susanne Otternsia, high-ranked officer in armada of his majesty the king of Zoongland, and a bit late of a few run-ins with the Zoogland armada. Nasty business, but l won't bore you with my old scars."

Then Susan turned to Mr. Bogo.

"I believe you've met my first officer, Mr. Bogo. Sterling, tough, dependable, honest, brave and true."

Mr. Bogo tried to hide his blushing.

"Please, captain." Mr. Bogo said humbly and a bit embarrassed by her flattery, for a large, muscular and stern-looking cape buffalo.

"Oh, shut up, Arrow. You know l don't mean a word of it." Susan teased with the friendly smile.

Before Leodore was able to say anything else, Otterton intervened before the governor could go too far with his words.

"Ahem, excuse me. l hate to interrupt this flattering, argument and lovely banter... but may l introduce to you, Susan, Judith Laverne Hawkins but Shortly Judy Hawkins from Inn of Bunnyborrow on this island?" Otterton said, referring with his paw at Judy, who nodded as a greeting at Susan.

"Yes!" Leodore suddenly yelled after Otterton finished. "This little bunny brat, you see, is the brat who found the treasure…"

With the quick nod from Susan, Mr. Bogo quickly grabbed with his hand from Leodore's jaw into tight grip, cutting quickly his words.

"The Governor, please!" Susan hissed and turned her head to look over her shoulder elsewhere, referring with the lion to look at there where she did.

Behind of them were the large black silverback gorilla sailor with the large black rhinoceros sailor, wild boar sailor, black jaguar sailor and moose sailor, who were bringing the cargo from the docks to the ship's cargo hold. Right next to them were standing one gray wolf sailor with the female cheetah sailor and wildebeest sailor, who were about to climb to the mast through the shrouds.

When Leodore almost let the secret of the map to slip out from his mouth into the seemingly unfriendly ears, they all turned their eyes on them with the unfriendly glare in their faces.

"Get back to your work!" Bogo ordered sternly with glaring coldly back at them.

The silverback gorilla let out a deep growl at them while the others still stared at them unfriendly, before they returned to their work.

After the sailors departed, by the nod from Susan, Bogo released his grip from around of Leodore's lips.

Leadore let out a light growl in pain while rubbing his sore aroundings of his muzzle from Bogo's tight grip.

"l'd like a word with you in my stateroom." Susan declared.

* * *

Susan's captain's stateroom, which was a quite big with the full of space for a small otter captain, there was space enough fo all of them to speak without anymore tensioned moments with the crew.

After all of them, including Otterton and Judy Hawkins, were inside of Susan's stateroom, Susan secured the door locking it from inside after leaving some guardians outside ot watch the door.

Instead of using Leodore's soldiers, Susan had called some of the crewmembers she trusted mostly from all for the job.

They were female Snow leopard sailor named Fabienne Growley and male moose sailor named Peter Moosebridge. Under her and Mr. Bogo's command, they were her sailor-dressed officers and one of the most trusted members in the crew alongside of few others.

They were actually even Susan's old and good friends from her school times and Susan knew that they were worthy of her trusting them not spreading to the the crew like this a forbid knowledge about the secret objects they had in their paws.

And then, Susan turned to Leodore, after jumping again onto Mr. Bogo's arm to talk with the governor in the same level with his faces after Mr. Bogo lifted his arm up.

"Governor, to muse and blabber about a treasure map in front and among of such of crew like this one... demonstrates your a high level of ineptitude and carelessness that borders on the imbecilic, and I mean that in a very caring way," Susan said.

"lmbecilic, did you say? Foolishness, l've…" Leodore tried to say but Susan interrupted by silencing him and turned to Otterton and Judy.

"Otterton dear, may l see the map, please?" Susan asked.

If the map was in Leodore's paws, she could have used more of a demanding tone. But because the map was in the paws of Judy and Otterton, she lightened half of her demanding tone to asking tone.

Otterton turned to Judy and motioned her to hand over the map nicely to Susan, ignoring Leodore's protesting and negative gestures.

Judy walked to Susan and Mr. Bogo and took the map out from her jacket's pocket, but of course awith a bit reluctance.

"Here." Judy mutered as she stretched out her arm, which hold the map, towards Mr. Bogo.

Mr. Bogo took the map from Judy's paw and handed it over to Susan.

Susan took the wrapped map from him and opened it for the moment to pay the look at it. Then she got a curious smile on her lips at the same time she eyed the map for while.

"Hmm… Fascinating." Susan said.

Then, Susan wrapped the map again and took it towards her stateroom's locked cabinet on the wall, where she handed the map to Mr. Bogo, who took it humbly from her paws.

Then Susan glanced back at the guests sternly, mainly Judy, while Bogo placed the map into the small wooden chest inside of the cabinet and closed the cabinet's doors.

"Ahem… Mrs. Hawkins. In the future, you will address me as "captain" or "Ma'am." Is that clear?" Susan asked wwith the stern tone.

Judy groaned quietly out of frustration. She had waited for an adventure and excitement on the seas, not being bossed around by the woman, who was the captain with her own rules in the ship she captained… just like back in the home under her mother's command.

"Ugh! Not again." Judy muttered rolling her eyes.

"Mrs. Hawkins?" Susan asked one more time with the serious tone, glancing at Judy with a serious and a direct and clear answer demading look.

Judy turned back to Susan, somewhat annoyed, but still respectful towards her.

"Yes… ma'am." Judy answered quietly and respectfully.

"That'll do." Susan said and reffered Mr. Bogo to lock the cabinet's doors with the key, which he handed over to Susan.

Then Susan turned back to the others while tucking the key to the now locked cabinet in her coat's pocket.

"Gentlemen, the map must be kept under lock and key in the hide when they're not in use." Susan instructed and turned to Otterton.

"Otterton dear, I would to like to speak with you for the moment after the departure, if you don't mind. I'll have for us some tea and cake and then you can tell me everything what you and young Mrs. Hawkins know already about the map." Susan said and earned from Mr. Otterton acceptable nod and a warm smile after he got invited for tea with Susan.

Then Susan turned back to Leodore.

"And the governor, yet again… with all due respect… zip your roaring screamer and watch your own words among the crew from now on." Susan said, before jumping off from Mr. Bogo's arm and took the seat behind of her large desk.

"Captain I assure you I…" Leodore tried once again to say something until he was cut in his words once again, much to the lion's annoyance.

"Let me make this as… monosyllabic as possible. I… don't much care for this crew you hired. This irritated Leodore greatly. He was about to explain that he did not hired the crew such like this but Otterton did, but he was interrupted again by Susan.

They're..." Susan started, until she got stuck in her words and turned to Mr. Bogo who stood next of her desk.

"Mr. Bogo, how did I describe them? I remember said something rather good this morning before coffee."

"Not counting in Peter, Fabienne, Jack thr squirrel, White Fang the white wolf, Claw the cougar and Baggy the Badger, they're a ludicrous gang of landlubbers, uncivilized, suspicious and like they're found half-drunken from the streets front of the bars, ma'am." Mr. Bogo answered.

"There you go, governor. Poetry."

Leodore finally gave up to his anger and furiously slammed his paw on the desk.

"Ah, do not try my patience, otter! Now, see here...!" Leodore yelled, but Susan did not reacted to lion's rage in any way. She just interrupted him once again.

"Governor, please. If you were an otter like Dr. Otterton, I'd love to chat with you... drink some tea, eat some cake and everything else, but l have a ship to launch... and you... you should get into your head a new batch of bucket of cold water to curb your anger." Susan said smiling smugly before turning to Mr. Bogo.

"Mr. Bogo, please escort these three down to the galley straightaway. Young Hawkins will be working for our cook, Mr. Wilder." Susan instructed.

Judy, who was already bored by the interaction between Leodore and Susan, was checking out Susan's fancy stateroom meanwhile the adults were talking with each others… until she turned around after her sharp hearing catched what Susan had just said about her very first assignment on this ship.

"Excuse me, what?! The cook?" She said greatly surprised.

"Oh sweet cheese and crackers." Judy hissed.

* * *

Mr. Bogo escorted furious Leodore, disappointed Judy and, but unlike others, smiling Otterton to the ship's galley.

Both Leodore and Judy were openly railing against Susan on their way to the galley, much ot both Mr. Bogo's and Mr. Otterton's dismay. Leodore was more than just a furious at the way she had spoken to him and Judy was nore than just upset that instead of being adventurer as she had waited, she got to be thrown into galley to work for the cook just like back in home.

"I can't believe that… that… woman! That… that… aquatic weasel! Who does she think is working for whom?" Leodore said furiously.

"For even this once I'm agree with you, Leodore. It's my map and and she put me to toil like a slave in the kitchen." Judy said.

Suddenly, Mr. Bogo grabbed from Leodore's by the left shoulder and Judy's ears, lifting her up off the floor from her ears.

"Now, both of you, clean your mouths because l'll not tolerate a any cross word about our captain!" He scolded them with the yelling tone before he released both Leodore and Judy from his hard grib.

"There's no finer officer in these, or any other, waters." He added.

"I'm agree with Mr. Bogo, Leodore and Judy. No a cross word behind of our captain's back, or she'll drop all of us to the next harbor in the voyage." Otterton scolded. He deeply resented the way how Leodore spoke about Susan.

In the galley, there was a dark figure working with the meals for the crew while whistling.

"Ahem, Mr. Wilder?" Mr. Bogo called.

His call got the figure's attention and he turned to them.

"Well, well, well! Isn't it Mr. Bogo, sir?" Figure said.

"My typical luck, They're always bringing in such fine and distinguished gents to grace my humble galley. Had I known, I'd have changed my dirty cook shirt to my jacket." The figure said laughing heartily before comming out from the shadowy galley's a thick steam.

Judy glanced over the figure with her skeptical eyes. She was able to distinguish that the figure had the peg leg on his the right leg and he was walking with the support of the crutch.

Not counting the apron the figure used, his upper slender body from the side of his back was completely exposed. Judy noticed that the figure's back was covered by the red fur and that he had a long bushy red tail. When the figure's head appeared from the shadows of the galley, he appeared to have so wide grin that the white teeth were seen. He also had the pointed black-topped ears, blood red kerchief on top of his head and there was black-brown eye-patch which was sewn into the skin around of the figure's right eye.

Red fur? Long bushy red tail? Pointed ears? wide grin?

Judy gasped and her eyes widened in the hidden shok after realizing what kind of animal the cook really was.

"The fox!" She whispered. She remembered the Claw Bones' last warning to her when Inn of Bunnyborrow was under attack.

" _Beware THE FOX_."

"Me and my big mouth." Judy whispered, remembering her and her mother's discussion about the foxes before departing. She couldn't believe that they actually let the fox board the honest merchant ship.

"May l introduce the Governor Leodore and Dr. Otterton, The financiers of our voyage." Mr. Bogo said, breaking the silence in Judy's mind.

Leodore did not do anything to say even "Hello" to the cook who was the red fox.

But unlike Leodore, Otterton took humbly a few step to forward, adjusting his spectacles, and gave a little bow in greeting.

Wilder eyes briefly both of them with his only one eye.

"Well, since when did the big pussy-cat finally learn not to be afraid of water, the governor?" Wilder teasingly asked from the governor, who gave a deep growl at the fox as an answer.

Wilder then turns to Dr. Otterton.

"And I thought that the doctors are always trying to avoid the voyages on the sea, Doc, regardless of the species." Wilder said, less mockingly to the otter.

"Well, because I am otter, I in fact enjoy the water and I've been as doctor of the fleet when I was younger, Mr. Wilder." Otterton said and turned to Judy.

"Uh, this young bunny lady is Judy Hawkins." Otterton said and referred Judy to take a few step foward the fox. Judy did so reluctantly and doubtful about the fox she was going to greet.

"GREETINGS, CARROTS! The name is Nick John Wilder, but to you… just Wilder" Wilder said with quite loudly and stretched out his right paw, which was covered by glove, until Wilder soon removed it from his paw, revealing to Judy that his paw and arm has been burnt to black.

Judy, refusing to shake her paw with the fox's own, watched silently and in disgust Wilder's burnt paw and arm before locking her untrusting eyes at Wilder's eyes. Wilder only simply smiled and then returned back to his galley.

"Aw, c'mon, Carrots. Don't be too put off by this burnt flesh." Wilder said, as he took lots of vegetables from the pantry and start cutting them into pieces with the quite large cleaver.

"Our guests are probably hungry. Do you have something to eat for them, Mr. Wilder? Mr. Bogo asked.

"Excuse me, what did you said, Mr. Buffalo-Butt?" Wilder asked, calling Mr. Bogo by the nickname which irritated Mr. Bogo, making him to snort angrily but still he managed to kept himself cool.

"Oh, Mr. Wilder, watch out!" Otterton tried to warn Wilder as he was still cutting the vegetables, without even looking at them and the cleaver.

"Watch out for what?" Wilder asked…

…until he suddenly cut his left paw off from his wrist with his own cleaver!

"OUCH!" Wilder yelled in pain.

Judy gasped in shock, raising her paws front of her mouth.

This unexpected incident almost got Mr. Otterton to take one step backwards in shock.

This also left Leodore to speechless by the shock.

"Peekaboo, heh, heh, heh, heh!" Wilder laughed as he revealed his left paw from under of his shirt's sleeve.

"That trick always works. You ever heard the saying "In the kitchen happens much more accidents than in the other rooms?" Wilder said before turning to Mr. Bogo.

"And of course I've something to eat for our guests, sir. Just gimme a minute and it's ready." Wilder said and walked to the pot, in which he was cooking something.

Wilder then took three wooden bowls and poured into them some stew from the pot and handed one of them to Otterton, one to Judy and one to Leodore.

"Here, now. Have a taste of my famous salmon stew." Wilder said.

Dr. Otterton was used to eat the fish soup what Judy's mother cooked for him back in the Inn of Bunnyborrow. Still, he at first sniffed the food and then tasted the stew with his tongue.

"Mmm! Delightfully tangy, yet robust." Otterton commented and was about to take a new batch of stew with the wooden spoon.

"Oh, thank you, Doc. It's my old papa's recipe." Wilder stated.

Suddenly, Otterton noticed an eyeball in the stew in his spoon, which caused him to shout in fright and shock after realizing what he was about to put into his mouth.

"Whoops! In fact, that happened to be part of my old papa!" Wilder said before he burst into loud and hearty laugh, rubbing with his finger over his eyes while Otterton was disgusted about his discover.

"Ah, c'mon, Doc. I was just kidding. This is just solid egg which I've modified to resemble an eyeball." Wilder explained and took "eyeball" out from Otterton's stew and threw it into his mouth swallowing it, causing Otterton to grimace in disgust.

This trick made him, as well as Leodore, to lose his appetite.

"If there's something I love the second most, it's a good sense of humor and raillery at the expense of the crew, except the high officers of course. It always leaves for me the hearty laugh."

Wilder then turned to Judy, who was still hesitating to taste her own stew.

"Go on, Carrots, have a swing. My apologies that there isn't now the carrot soup. I knew once one bunny in the pasts who was able to eat fish without hesitating, even though the bunnies are mostly in fact vegetarians."

Wilder's trick to Otterton had also a tiny effect to Judy, causing her to lose her own appetite.

"Doesn't the stew taste to you right now. Carrots?" Wilder asked with the wide grin.

Judy was so deep under of her hesitating that she was unable to take even one taste of the stew. In fact, she didn't even liked the fish.

"Not at least after that what you just did. That was quite cruel from you to spook someone to death just like that and have then a sweet laugh from the others shock and disgust. You should be a little ashamed of your behavior." Judy said while looking at heartily grinning fox at the eyes.

"A tiny trick doesn't kill anybody, Carrots. And I don't call it an successeful attempt to spook anyone. It's called a raillery, sweetheart, that's all." Wilder said, defending his a quite harmeless trick.

Judy took a resentful look on her face as she stared at Wilder.

Suddenly, felt that something landed on her right shoulder and turned her head to see, only to be badly startled when she realized that there was a loudly squawking monkey appeared out of nowhere on her shoulder so unexpectedly that Judy almost dropped her bowl still full of salmon stew to the floor.

The monkey then stole the bowl from Judy's paws and escaped out from her reach to hang from the rood from its tail to eat the stew instead of her.

"Flint? You little hairy buggers of the seven seas! So that's where you were hiding from me after your last scam!" Wilder exclaimed

The monkey dropped the empty bowl to the floor, letting out a small burp before it jumped again onto Judy's shoulder. Climbing around of her body and playing with her ears.

"Hey! Excuse me, but what did you said? Who did you just called to Flint?" Judy asked, while trying to catch the monkey.

"Who did you just called to Flint?" The monkey said imitating the words Judy had just spoken, surprising Judy. Before the monkey jumped from her shoulder onto Wilder's shoulder.

"That monkey of course, Carrots. His name… is Captain Flint. I found that monkey from the some island of the Caribbean some time ago and named him after that legendary pirate. And before you ask anything else about that from me, yes, I've also heard many times over of those stories about that legendary pirate captain but I've not paid my interest upon them, except naming monkey after old one captain Flint. I even taught him to speak like the parrot but that's the old Wilder's secret that how I managed to do that." Wilder explained.

"Captain Flint" started to nuzzle his head against Wilder's head.

"Aw, he took a shine to me. We've been together ever since we met… that's the daddy's good boy." Wilder said affectionately nuzzling back and heartily giggling he returned back to his galley again.

Suddenly, someone ringed a couple times the ship's bell above on the deck. Mr. Bogo took this as notification about the ship being ready and he was needed on the deck.

"Ahem, we're about to get underway. Would you like to observe the departure of the ship, doctor and the governor?" Mr. Bogo said.

Leodore didn't answered, but he wanted only to get to the deck and out of the galley full of sick jokes, foxes and the monkeys… in his opnion… full of fleas. He just debarted to the deck.

"Would I? There's no way I would ignore the first phase of our the greatest adventure of our lives." Otterton said

Then he briefly turned to Judy like she was about to whisper something to her ear.

"Besides, Susan is waiting for me on the bridge before and after departure." Otterton said and departed from the galley after Leodore.

Judy was about to follow Otterton until Mr. Bogo blocked his way with his enormous hand and turned to Wilder, who was about to take his own taste of the stew.

"Ahem, Mrs. Hawkins will stay here, in your charge, Mr. Wilder.

After hearing what Mr. Bogo has just said in the middle of the careful tasting, Wilder surprised so badly that he almost swallowed the stew down the wrong way and spits out the stew, strongly and loudly coughing and choking. Then he turned Mr. Bogo.

"Begging your pardon, sir, but, uh..." Wilder started to protest until Mr. Bogo turned quickly back to him and glared at him with the stern eye."

"THESE ARE THE CAPTAIN'S ORDERS! See to it the new cabin bunny's kept busy." Bogo said and departed to the deck.

"Oh! C'mon, Mr. Buffalo Butt! I was hired as a cook, not as the baby-sitter! That doe is…" Wilder tried to protest.

"You gotta be kidding me! Are you really gonna leave me under of the guard of THE FOX and…" Judy tried also to protest.

Eventually both of them sighed deeply in defeat and rubbed with their fingers over their eyes, pinching the bridges of their noses, ironically mirroring of each others despite their differences in species.

Then, both of them looked at each others.

"So… Cap'n's put you with me, eh?" Wilder started walking aroud of Judy with his paws behind of his back and eyed the bunny.

"Yeah… whatever." Judy said flatly and shrugging.

Wilder took a wide smile again and then waalked away from Judy to return to his galley to cook another meal for the crew.

"Ah, who be a humble fox to argue with a Cap'n?" He chuckled at himself.

Judy quickly spotted the three barrels. One of them had filled with carrots, another one with apples and third one with onions. Judy took one of the carrots and started to walk around of the galley, eyeing it for a while.

"Ya know... These carrots, they're kinda like the ones back home... Me and my mom got lots of carrots from the nearby farms of the Inn of Bunnyborrow. Ya ever been there before?" Judy asked, trying to get to know how the fox will react to this.

"Ah... Can't says I have, Carrots. I've not very much interested about visiting in the bunny lands. They do not like the foxes very much out there." Wilder simply said, while skimming and slicing the swedes.

Judy then took a bite out of the carrot and then she hoisted herself onto the counter, sitting down and taking another biting from the carrot.

"Come to think of it, just before I left, I met this old guy who was, uh... how can I say that… He was kind of running away for someone fox buddy of his who was probably looking for him and then attacked to my home after this guy's arrival." Judy said.

"Is that so?" Wilder asked.

"Yeah. What was that old cheetah's name?" Judy mumbling asked from herself.

"Oh, yeah. Bones. Claw Bones? Is that name in any way familiar to you?" Judy asked.

Wilder seemed to be a bit confused and surprised while pouring the cooking water to the large wooden bowl.

"Excuse me, who? Bones? Claw Bones? (brief silence again) Hmph, I'm sorry Carrots. I don't know anyone with that name." Wilder said simply.

"You're sure of that?" Judy asked, surprised that Wilder didn't react in any way to her words.

"Yep. The name "Bones" ain't ringing any bells in my memory. Must've been a different fox he was running for. You see, there's a countless number of different foxes everywhere of the Caribbean sea... and even in this port is no exception about my kind's presence." Wilder answered.

Suddenly, they both heard the sound of whistle from the deck, and then Mr. Bogo was yelling to everyone aboard to be ready for the departure.

"Eh, off with you, girl, and watch the departure. There'll be plenty work waiting for you afterwards." Wilder said, pushing Judy gently out of the galley towards the stairs to the deck to watch's the ship's departure and then returned back to his work.

But after Judy had left from the galley, Wilder paused briefly the cooking and watched after her, while handing rusk to Captain Flint.

"That girl seems to know much... maybe a bit too much… Maybe it's best for us to keep a sharp eye on this bunny, aye, Flint? We wouldn't want her straying into things she shouldn't." Wilder muttered with the dark tone.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the ship's mast, the ship's look-out weasel named Duke Weaselton was checking out with his telescope that the way out of the port, without any possible incidents and or collisions with the other ships, was clear for them.

"We're all clear, captain!" Weaselton yelled down from the crow's-nest.

Captain Susan, wearing now a blue three-cornered hat on her head, was meanwhile standing on the bridge (in fact, she was standing on Mr. Bogo's raised arm), with Mr. Bogo and Dr. Otterton on her side.

Governor Leodore was also with them, but he childishly and impatiently tried to give the orders to the crew, who were waiting for orders on the main deck, to put the ship to leave from the port and scolded them from not listening to him.

"What are you waiting for?! Lift up the anchor and set sail open! Are you even listening to me?!" Leodore yelled angrily.

The crew only rolled their eyes ignoring the governor's orders.

"Do we need to be ashamed our eyes out before the entire crew because of your childish manners? Susan is the captain in here, not you. So get back to your own position and be shut up!" Otterton said.

Leodore growled in anger and returned to his position.

"Well, my friend. Are we ready to move this ship out of the port?" Susan asked.

"My pleasure, captain." Bogo answered and turned to the crew.

"All hands to stations!" Mr. Bogo yelled.

When Judy arrived to the deck, the crew was already rushing to their positions.

On Judy's left side, there was one fennec fox sailor named Finnick climbing alongside female cheetah sailor and grey wolf sailor through the mast's shrouds and in the opponent shrouds were the black jaguar sailor climbing to the mast and climbing right behind of him were one black wooled and horned ram sailor, two raccoon sailors, badger, woodchuck, polar bear and moose sailor.

Judy also spotted from another shrouds the team of four animals, white-furred timber wolf, cougar, badger and squirrel, heading towards the mast's rigging and sails. Judy realized that they must have been those ones whom Mr. Bogo mentioned earlier back in the Susan's stateroom.

They all headed to their positions in the rigging while some other, bigger and a bit stronger, sailors were lifting the anchor out of the water.

Some of them were loosening and pulling together the ropes, which were holding the ship in the docks, as the ship started to slowly but certainly move away from the docks.

Some port workers were rowing in the three longboats in front of the ship's bow. They were pulling Zoopaniola out of the port towards the open waters with the ropes, whose ends were fastened to the ship and the boats.

When the ship was almost out of the port, the workers on the boats then released the ropes and rowed away from the ship.

"Mr. Redfur, we're almost out of the harbor. Be prepared to take us to the open water and take the course towards northeast." Susan commanded the bengal tiger named Redfur, who was Zoopaniola's steersman.

"Aye, aye, Captain." Redfur said and turned the ship towards north-east.

Then Susan turned to Mr. Bogo.

Mr. Bogo, I want the sails being ready to catch the wind before we're hit by the gust of wind from the south-west, if you please."

Mr. Bogo nodded and turned his attention to the men in the rigging.

"Release the sails and tighten them properly before a gust of wind!" Mr. Bogo commanded and the sailors in the rigging released the sails in every mast while some men on the deck started to tighten them immediately after they were released.

Judy watched all of this in awe while black rhino sailor, spotted hyena sailor and crocodile sailor were tightening the sails by pulling on a rope behind of her, until they moved backwards too fast and the crocodile sailor bumped into Judy.

"Hey weakling! Watch it!" The crocodile sailor yelled rudely at Judy before he get back to work.

Judy stared at the crocodile an accusing eye but she didn't noticed the wild boar sailor, who was rushing toward her.

"Hey! Out of my way, girl!" Wild boar yelled and pushed Judy rudely aside as he hurried to his position.

Muttering plaintively the crew's manners, Judy jumped back to her feet and continued to watching the ship's departure.

Then Susan turned to Dr. Otterton and Leodore.

"Brace yourself, Doctor and the Governor." Susan warned.

Otterton seemed to know what was soon happening and braced himself but Leodore didn't.

"And why should I do so? Because Mrs. otter said so?" Leodore asked mockingly.

"Because of we're gonna get a hit from the upcoming wind current." Susan Answered.

"They're very strong outside of the port so it's gonna be a very fierce thrust. So I would urge you to brace yourself, governopr."

"Brace yourself!" In your dreams, otter." Leodore said sarcastically.

But before anyone was able to warn Leodore, the strong gust of wind catched the ship's sails and the ship rocketed like the wind to its voyage.

Being used to this, Mr. Bogo and Susan were still standing on their position and Dr. Otterton had to lean against the mast behind of them.

However, Leodore wasn't so lucky and he only flew violently backwards by the wind's fierce thrust. Leodore flew through of his soldiers and landed roughly against the railing behind of the bridge, knocking his head to the railing in the proces.

Zoopaniola was finally able to take course towards the open sea at full speed and began its voyage towards the Treasure Tropolis.

As Zoopaniola departed from the harbor, Judy had climbed in middle of the ship's foredeck mast's shrouds and looked out into the open sea as the ship sailed.

Not long after they left from the harbor, they passed a flock of the great whales that swim all around of the ship at the same speed, and quite close to the surface and some of them to the surface for a breath of oxygen.

Judy followed a single individual's going right next to the ship with the amazed expression and smile on her face.

"Wow!" She whispered in awe. She has never before seen the whales this close, only had heard about them in the school.

The same whale then even blew the water out of the blowhole on its head, which flew high into the air and then rained upon Judy.

Feeling the cold salt water, even thoiugh it came out from inside of the whale, in her face, Judy burst into hearty laugh. This was what she had waited for so long since her childhood: free and fresh sea air and the great adventure ahead. She was gonna enjoy this trip 'till they reach to the reward waiting for its retriever in the end of their journey

Meanwhile, Leodore stared at her from the bridge.

"Look at that brat. What amazing is about those whales. My own interest about the whales is only about their precious whale oil, which is highly productive source of money." Leodore said to himself.

"If I say even "Hello!" to them, how they will answer to me? In no way!"

Leodore then leaned over the railling and raised his hand as "greeting" to the whale, which was visiting on the surface of the water right next of the ship.

"Hello, stupid whale. How are you gonna answer to me?" He asked sarcastically.

"Uh, the governor, do you know what whales usually do when they...?" Susan and Otterton tried both to warn him, but it was too late.

When Leodore turned his head to Dr. Otterton and Susan, the whale blew the water out of the blowhole… right below of the governor Leodore.

After the water blast, Leodore was covered by the extremely slime water… right down to his fur, his combed and trimmed mane and his finest governor goat… much to his shock.

Otterton and Susan could not help but giggle at this a little harmless incident. Even most of the crew laughed at Leodore.

"He really knows how to be impossible and careless with his own thoughs and words sometimes." Otterton said.

"I see that clearly, Otterton dear." Susan said back.

Meanwhile, Wilder had appeared from his dark galley to the deck in his red jacked and black three-cornered hat hat. And at first he encountered Otterton and Susan from the main deck.

"Ah, today is very fine day for sailing, Cap'n. Sunny day, a good wind, deck full of cheerfully singing sailors… And look at our little otter captain, who's today very cheery like the sun in the sky of blue and sweet like many beautiful vixens I've met before my very first step aboard this ship commanded by the woman like you, Cap'n." Wilder said, remopving his hat from his head and bowed humbly to Susan.

Otterton a bit felt some jealousy about the fox's flattering words towards Susan, which she quickly noticed.

"Maybe you can save that kind of flattering words for your floozies in the bars, Mr. Wilder!" Susan ordered, which seemingly hit inside of Wilder as his eyes widened and he took the confused expression on his face.

Captain Flint then jumped to Wilder's right shoulder and started mockingly imitate Susan's words.

"Floozies in the bars! Floozies in the bars! Floozies…!" The monkey said until it caught Wilder's attention and he hurriedly grabbed from the monkey hiding him under of his jacket.

"Aw, now you got to me so rudely, captain. I swear that my words are nothing but my heart at all times." Wilder said with a bit offended-looking expression on his face.

Suddenly, Captain Flint, who had sneaked its way inside of Wilder's jacket to behind of his head, appeared above of Wilder's head and wore the fox's own hat on his own head.

"Nothing but my heart…" The monkey said imitating this time Wilder, until Wilder quickly grabbed his hat and put it back to his head, hiding Flint once again underof his jacket, laughing nervously.

Susan rolled her eyes, until her attention was caught by something else on the deck.

"And, ahem, by the way, isn't that your cabin bunny... aimlessly footling about in those shrouds?" Susan asked with the questioning look targeted at Wilder.

Wilder was at first nervously confused. He was originally on the deck to find Judy and put her to the work until his attention was caught by Susan's appearance after he had left from his galley.

"Well... uh... yes... I was... uh… Just a momentary aberration, Cap'n, soon to be addressed." Wilder said nervously and then turned to Judy.

"Ahem, Carrots!" He called Judy until she looked over at him from the shrouds.

"I got two new friends I'd like you to meet." Wilder said and Judy eagerly glanced around, trying to find who these two "new friends" of hers might be.

"Say hello to Mr. Mop and Mrs. Bucket!" Wilder said and unexpectedly threw to Judy the mop and wooden bucket.

The latter almost pulled Judy off from the shrouds and even overboard, but Judy managed to barely maintain a balance.

"Have fun with them, until I found some "new friends" for ya to play." Wilder said, laughing heartily at his new joke and departed from the scene, leaving quite disappointed Judy behind.

"Yippie!" Judy sarcastically mutered after Wilder was gone.

* * *

 **And it was the thrid chapter of TREASURE TROPOLIS. I hope you enjoyed it.**

 **You probably saw a tiny error in the roles. Even though Emmit Otterton play's Dr. Doppler's role from Treasure Planet, most of the argument between Doppler and Amelia is placed in between Mrs. Otterton and Leodore, whose role in my fanfic does not exist in Treasure Planet film, because I wanted to kept the relationship between Ottertons unchanged or more likely like they've not seen each others for a long while. I also wanted Otterton to be calm, friendly and honest and Leodore as impatient, grumpy and quite immature by personality in this chapter.  
**  
 **See ya next time soon when chapter 4 comes out.**


	4. Chapter 4: The Voyage

**New Chapter of TREASURE TROPOLIS is open now. For all the followers and fans, please enjoy.**  
 **There will also be the song " _I'm still here_ " from Treasure Planet, song by Judy.**

* * *

When the day had turned into grayish cloudy afternoon, Judy had been spending fifteen minutes of swabbing Zoopaniola's deck with the bored mood.

"Yeah, I got ya, Mr. Mop." Judy said sarcastically as she slapped the mop against the deck.

Judy then briefly leaned to the mop and sighed deeply. Since she had found the treasure map, she was expecting the great adventure being waiting for her but noooo! She was instead put on mop duty, by certain fox, which was as boring as washing the dishes back in home.

Suddenly, the huge silverback gorilla appeared behind of Judy and roughly pushed her out of his way to the deck. Judy grunted in pain after rough landing and rose up to glare at the gorilla distracted about such of rude manners.

"Hey, watch it you big hulk!" Judy shouted at gorilla.

Scar-faced and muscular gorilla then turned to Judy with menacing expression on his face and shaking his fists angrily at Judy.

"Watch your mouth, you little twerp, or I'll crush you like a bug." Gorilla growled deeply and threateningly at Judy before walking away.

Judy rose back on her feet angrily muttering and continued swabbing the deck.

Judy then turned to watch to the deck, where around of one lone barrel had gathered the large group of crew members. Two of them were challenged each other to fierce armwrestling.

One of them was the bulky, muscular and blond-maned african lion with the blue sailor pants and a black eyepatch over his right eye and another one was the large red-brown elephant with the one broken tusk and blood-red eyes, who wore a silver sleeveless shirt, a dark vest and brown pants. In middle of them stood slender leopard with the green jacket, who acted as referee of this competition while Finnick and female cheetah, the wilf boar, a hippo, the wolf, the wildebeest, a crocodile, spotted hyena, black-wooled ram and black jaguar were observing the match from all around of them.

Then Judy turned her attention to the another side of the ship, where a huge, dark-brown furred and obese grizzly bear, who wore a blue waistcoat, blood-red bandana on his head and the golden air rings on his ears, was standing around of the another lonely barrel with Duke Weaselton, large and fat polar bear sailor, black-white furred badger sailor, woodchuck sailor and two raccoon sailors.

The sailors were whispering something to one another.

Judy tried to ignore them and their own business but couldn't help it if her sensitive hearing and her quite curious side got her to turn her eyes to the sailors. Judy even bent slightly her left ear to hear what they were whispering.

However, grizzly bear eventually spotted Judy staring at them from the other side of the ship and, probably knowing that the rabbits naturally had the sharp sense of hearing, motioned the others act like nothing had happened.

They glared back at Judy as she slowly turned her eyes again at them.

"What are you looking at, yoy little gray weirdo? One of the raccoons, taller and slender than another raccoon with the green bandana around of his head said with rough tone.

"Yeah, you little gray weirdo!" Another and a bit taller and fatter raccoon with brown panths said quite mockingly.

Judy looked quickly away from them.

"Nothing." Judy answered lightly and get back to work.

She tried her best to ignore the fact that also the crewmembers from the around of the paused armwrestling competition started to stare at her with the grim expression on their face.

"Look, I don't want any trouble. I'm already bored for the one day." Judy said with the frustrated tone after she couldn't take anymore the crewmembers glaring at her with such of grim expression on their faces.

"It would be best for you!" Someone suddenly said with the dark tone and deep growl right behind of Judy's back.

Judy slowly turned around to see who had just talked to her from behind of her back.

Then Judy saw the another red fox sailor approaching her threateningly and with the maniac-like expression of his face.

This fox was almost two times bigger than Judy, a bit larger compared to Wilder's size, slightly plump but quite muscular. The fox had also a creepy scar across of his face, golden eyes and yellowish teeth. He had even missing part from his upper lip in the left side of his muzzle, very nasty-looking bite mark-like round cut in his left ear and two fingers, pinky and ring finger, were half missing from his left paw. He wore the dark purple and tattered sailor coat, blood-red bandana around of his head, blood-red sash around of his waist and purple pants. He had also dyed his upper body's shaggy fur in black, except his head, legs, shaggy tail and his clawed paws.

"Cabin bunnies should learn to mind their own business." Fox said growling at Judy.

Judy, however, didn't showed any sight of fear in front of the fox who stared at her angrily and growling.

"Why? Do you have something to hide, dumb fox?" Judy tauntingly asked with the sarcastic grin on her lips.

The fox's eyes widened with anger for this taunt and angrily growling he immediately grabbed her from her shirt's collar and roughly lifted her off the ground.

"Maybe your so-called sensitive sense of hearing filled ears don't work so well… for the bunny." The Fox said angrily.

"Yeah, maybe not!" Judy said, trying to get out of the fox' tight grip.

"Ugh! Too bad my nose works just fine under that smell from your mouth." Judy grumbled, trying to turn her face, and nose, away from the fox's mouth to avoid his breath, which didn't smell very nice.

"Ugh, that smells awful! What on earth have you eaten? Go to wash your teeth if you please." Judy grumbled with the disgusted expression on her face after feeling the fox' hot breath in her nose.

This last line angered this fox, whose deep and growling voice started to turn into louder and threatening.

"Why you pitiful little BRAT!" Fox barked furiously and slammed Judy roughly against the main mast.

After doing so, the entire crew, who was in the p resence right now on the deck, gathered all around of Judy and the fox loudly shaking their paws at them and cheer and egg the fox on whatever he was planning to do to that bunny. They were soon joined by black-backed jackal and red-black furred cape dog, who came down from the main mast through of the shrouds to cheer at the fox with their fellow crew mates.

"Go ahead! Slice her! Dice her! Gut her!" Egged Finnick while jumping next of the red fox.

"Dig the bunny's eyes out!" Yelled red-black furred cape dog sailor.

"Shred her ears to shreds!" Yelled the golden-furred and black spotted female cheetah next of Finnick.

"Slash her throat open slowly! Let her to choke to her own blood!" Yelled grizzly.

"Let's skin the bunny… slowly!" Yelled the badger, who held the knife on his hand.

"Squash her head like the bug!" Roared gorilla drumming his chest with his big fists!

"Cut her pretty cheeks with your claws!" The lion roared.

"Give her to me! I'm hungry!" Yelled the crocodile the drooling mouth widely open and licking his lips. "I'll swallow that little bunny as a single mouthful!"

"Let's hung her hanging from the raw yard a noose around her pretty neck!" Yelled the spotted hyena.

"Let's beat her to the really bad condition!" The boar shouted and the wildebeest next of him nodded as an agreement.

"Cut her pretty paws off. We're always wanted the good luck producing paws of rabbit!" The raccoons yelled.

"Let's tie her to the cannon and drop her into the depths!" Weaselton yelled and threw a rotten tomato next of Judy's head.

"No soy un cerdo! (I ain't pig!)" Yelled the same warthog which Judy, Otterton and Leodore were met when they aboarded the ship and spat towards Judy.

The large elephant trumpeted loudly and eggingly at the fox as the wolf howled and the feline crew members roared and hissed as an agreement.

The fox sailor took a pleasure when he saw how the little bunny's nose twitched, knowing that the bunny was after all scared due of all of these threats and cruel suggestions the crew members threw upon of her although she didn't showed her fear openly to them, neither to that fox, much to the fox's dismay. So, in order to get this little bunny to show even a tiny sign of fear, OPENLY, the fox then took out the sharp-looking sailor knife from his sash and placed its sharp side against Judy's pretty throat. Judy gasped when she felt the cold and sharp blade on her throat.

"Any last words, cabin bunny?" The fox asked menacingly with the sadistic grin and was about to slash Judy's throat.

Suddenly, Wilder arrived out of nowhere to the scene and hit with his crutch to the fox sailor's wrist, getting him to yelp in pain and drop his dagger to the deck, much to his surprise and to other crew members' disappointment.

"Ahem, Mr. Israel Grey." Wilder started, until he paused to take a bite from apple he held in his left paw, without even looking at the fox sailor but he hold with his crutch the fox sailor's arm down, preventing him to harm Judy in any way.

"Do you know how much it hurts if you get hit from something hard on your sore toe? Believe me, because if you do, you should know that it… HURTS… REALLY… MUCH!"

Wilder then, quickly and forcefully, struck with his his crutch's another end to the fox sailor's toe… right that a sore one Wilder just spoke of. The fox sailor, after feeling the crutch's another end hitting on his toe and feeling the wave of pain, gasped and yelped loudly in pain and let go of Judy's shirt.

As Judy landed on the deck unharmed, the fox sailor jumped on the deck holding with both of his paws his leg around of his sore toe, grinding his teeth in pain.

Suddenly…

Mr. Bogo arrived to the scene with Leodore's tiger soldiers with the uploaded muskets.

"What's all this, then?" Mr. Bogo yelled sternly as the crewmen quickly and without hesitation, even the fox sailor after the pain in his toe started slowly to fade, gathered into the long line before him.

"You know the rules. There'll be no brawling on this ship! Uncivilized brawling is for the pirates and this is the royal mercant ship." Mr. Bogo said to the crew with the scolding tone.

The crew members mutered "Aye" as Mr. Bogo passed each one of them.

"From now on, behave like an honest sailors or else, if here's any further uncivilized brawling, all offenders and rule breakers will be confined to the brig for the remainder of the voyage." Mr. Bogo explained, stopping in front of the fox sailor who minute ago threatened Judy.

Mr. Bogo then turned to the fox.

"Am I clear, Mr. Israel Grey?"

Israel Grey called fox glared at Mr. Bogo angrily like he was about to fight back the officer even with the hare paws, but he was quickly given a warning scowl by Wilder from aside, making the fox to decide with the reluctance to back down.

"Transparently." Israel Grey eventually said.

"Good. The show is over. You're all dimissed!" Mr. Bogo said and walked away.

And when he departed, Israel Grey gave a long, dark and murderous glare with his golden eyes at Mr. Bogo behind of his back, letting out the light but sinister growl from his mouth. Grey even squeeze his paw around of his sailor knife's handle like he was considering to stab the buffalo in the back while he was looking at elsewhere without suspecting anything, even though the First Mate was accompanied by the tiger soldiers, who were holding in their paws the loaded muskets which were yet equipped with the bayonets.

However, he quickly let go of his knife's handle and left from the scene to get back to work.

Wilder then began to drive off the rest of the crew members from the scene.

"Well done, Mr. Bogo, sir! A tight ship's a happy ship, sir." Wilder called after Mr. Bogo, giving the departed buffalo the humble salute.

As the crew members left from the scene, leaving only him and Judy two alone, Wilder then picked the mop from the deck and turned to Judy.

"Carrots! I gave you a job, didn't I?" Wilder said, pointing with his finger at the mop whuich he was about to hand over to Judy's paws.

Judy turned to him in frustration.

"Hey, Wilder, I was doing it until that 'psycho fox' came and…" Judy said defending herself.

"BELAY THAT!" Wilder barked loudly in front of Judy's face with the eyes widened and his teeth bared by anger. And then, instead of handing gently the mop back on her paws, Wilder roughly threw it on Judy's paws.

"Now, I want this deck swabbed spotless 'till the nightfall and heaven help you if I come back and it's not done!" He said sternly.

Wilder then turned his attention to Flint.

"Ahen, Captain Flint? Keep an eye on this dumb bunny… and let me know if there be any more distractions." Wilder said and departed from the scene, leaving leaving Flint keeping an eye Judy who returns to her job under his watch.

"I want this deck swabbed spotless 'till the nightfall! I want this deck swabbed spotless 'till the nightfall!" Captain Flint imitated Wilder's words, ordering him to get back to his work.

"Okay, okay!" Judy said greatly frustrated by the fact that she was put under the watch of the monkey, and started to swab the deck again from where she was before being threatened by the one fox.

* * *

Meanhwile, later on that day.

Wilder had secretly called all those crewmembers, who were involved in today's brawling, to under the deck for the secret meeting of the crew. He wanted to have a word with a whole gang and make one certain thing clear to them, they most of them most likely have already forgot within a one single day, much to Wilder's dismay, but he was also pleased to get to remind them in his own way.

The crew was waiting down in the galley grumbling and whispering to each others until Wilder, with the grinn on his face, arrived to the galley to face the crew.

"So, we're all here, then." He asked, having all attention turned at him.

Suddenly, Duke Weaselton appeared arrived hurriedly down the stairs to the galley, apologizing for being late and joins the meeting.

"Now…" Wilder started, holding his paws behind his back while walking among the crew who were starring at him nervously.

"Ah, if you pardon me my plain speaking, gentlemen and ladies. But after what happened on the deck today, you mind if I ask from all of that are you all..." Wilder said nicely and calmly as he grabbed to his swords handle and pulls the blade out and suddenly and unexpectedly raised his voice at the crew.

"…BY KRAKEN'S MOUTH, TOTALLY BRAINLESS FOOLS?! Wilder shouted loudly with the scolding tone and starts to swings violently around with his sword, slashing at the same time Duke's hat in half and nearly chopping off Duke's head in the process.

"But Cap'n. The whole brawling wasn't even our fault." Weaselton said trembling, when he dared to come out from the cover under the table, to where he had jumped when Wilder had started swung his sword around.

Wilder turned then to Weaselton, pointing with his sword at trembling weasel.

"Who of you then started that brawl?!" Wilder demanded to know, pointing with his sword at everyone like he was ready to stab with his sword through of the brawl's starter's heart.

Almost everyone in the galley pointed immediately Mr. Israel Grey in the corner of the galley with their fingers, causing him to stare at the other crew with cold and murderous glare with his golden eyes, causing some of them, who were closer of him, to get cover behind of the barrels and tables.

"Israel Grey! Who would have guessed? Do I need to repeat the entire plan to you bunch of pea-brained idiots yet again?!" Wilder said and started yet again to point everyone in the galley one by one with his sword.

"I told you the plan once and carefully, so I'm gonna tell it to you yet this one time, and I'm gonna make sure that it will be the last time. We need to wait 'till the right moment, is that too much to aks from all of you pea-brained idiots? After I cunningly tricked all of those fools to hire all of us as an upstanding crew, you want to blow the whole mutiny before it's time?!" Wilder asked from his "pea-brained" men before turning his full attention to Israel Grey.

"Like the weasel said, Wilder, the brawl wasn't our fault. We were provoked by that rabbit." Mr. Israel Grey growled with the dark tone, trying to defend his actions.

Wilder took the expression on his face, which told to Mr. Israel Grey that he was demanding from him far more better answer to that. He did not believed that this bunch of pea-brained idiotic men had provoked like that today only because "they've never seen before the tiny bunny sailing in the large ship on the seas with them," which of course wasn't quite common but also not a good reason to mutiny by their own periods against his orders.

"That girl was sniffing about!" Mr. Israel Grey added with the sinister growl.

"And you almost got us and our plan exposed by acting like a dumb wild beast on the loose!" Wilder scolded, earning from Mr. Israel Grey the light growl.

"You too stick to the plan, you fur-brained twit! Make sure that it sinks in your skull, or else I embed it in your tight skull with the bullet of musket in your head!" Wilder threatened as he made himself clear in his own way to his men.

Then his voice turned more calmer.

"And what comes to the girl, leave her to me, lads. I'll run that bunny so ragged she'll barely have time to think anything else, including our little… surprise for them when the time is up." Wilder said and turned his sly gaze to the deck.

* * *

Later, when the day started to fall to night, Judy had finally swabbed the whole deck from the ship's stern to its bow.

And right now she was finishing her job with the bow deck with Captain Flint. The monkey had decided to find a smalled mop and then help her after feeling some pity for the bunny. Even swabbing the deck was quite long and exhausting job.

Eventually, exhausted Judy took the brief pause, leaned to the mop and looked at Flint with the exhausted and thankful grin.

During the rest of the day, Judy had slowly started to warm up to the monkey and even accepted his company for her while swabbing the deck, and yet she was earlier today quite annoyed of having monkey keeping an eye on her. Normally, Judy would only ignored the monkey's entire presence because of her old desire to be left alone, but now she was quite thankful to the monkey for its help and grew to respect him.

"Well, Captain Flint, this has been a fun day, huh? Making new friends... like that 'fox psycho.'" Judy said, suddenly stretching out her paws towards Flint and revealing her small white claws in her fingers and grinding her teeth making "Arrr!" and "Grrr!" sounds she had done last time as a little child while playing the pirates with her friends. Even as a young teen, her sounds were still quite squeak-like and non-spooky.

Flint humorously pretended to be frightened of Judy's sounds and backed off to take from his jacket's pocket some clothes resembling Israel Grey's clothes and even the mask resembling Grey's face. Flint put them on and then started to act like Grey.

"Fox psycho! Fox spycho! Grrr! Grrr! Arrr! Arrr!" The monkey replied imitated Judy's words.

Judy could not hold back her giggling at this. It actually felt good but Judy wasn't satisfied. At least, not just yet.

"Heh. Maybe a little uglier, please." Judy humorously asked with the sly grin.

Flint then cleared his throat and prepared to carry out the bunny's request.

Flint then took the most whimsical expression and smile on his face.

"Mwah-ha-ha-ha!" Flint laughed absurdly and humorously maniacally

Such of laugh made Judy to burst out hearty laugh. It felt also good and much more better than the first one. It has been a while when she had last laughed like that when she was seven years old.

"Pretty close." Judy said when she panted after her hearty laugh. Flint took off Grey's mask and gave to Judy the friendly smile.

Suddenly, Wilder appeared to the scene in his normal white cook clothes and apron. He was carrying the wooden bowl full of surpluses from the dinner, which he prepared to throw overboard as food for the sea creatures. But he paused in the middle of it and took out some bananas he had saved from the dinner for the Captain Flint. After seeing bananas in the fox's paws, Flint rushed eagerly to his master and took from him one banana before jumping onto his shoulder and started to eating it.

"Well, well, well, thank heavens for little miracle. The little cabin bunny is still up here on deck at this time of day, and still in one piece." Wilder said heartily laughing and handing over another banana to Captain Flint as the reward for watching the bunny for him, before he started to throw the surpluses ouf from the bowl overboard to the sea.

Judy knew that she was in debt of gratitude to this fox for what he did earlier today and turned slowly and hesitating to him.

"Um, look, l, uh... For what you did today... Thanks." Judy said stuttering.

Wilder then turned to Judy.

"I hope that you learned something today, Carrots. Some animals, most likely large predators and prey, are not used to see little bunny onboard of the huge ship like this one. They believe that the bunnies does not have the guts to even climb aboard of the ship and experience at first such of rude treatment and even the prejudgment from the crew like you did today and many others dangers what the sea contains. Some, even though a very few, agreed to try to get used to the new things like having you part of the crew but there's also some who do not like the new things." Wilder said.

"Like that another fox you trampled over of his sore toe with your crutch… do you know him?" Judy asked."

Wilder let out a quite disgusted snort.

"We two met back in the port inn just before we were hired as crew to this ship." Wilder simply answered.

"But before you ask from me anything else about that Israel Grey, such like "Are you two relatives to each others? Is he your brother or cousin? How long have you known him? Or why you let him doing such like that I experienced today?" I believe you were gonna ask from me something like that only because we two are the only red foxes onboard. Nope, Carrots. We're not relatives to each other. I barely even know him. In fact, I don't even like him and his ways to solve his own problems with the others. I'm kind of tasked myself to keep an eye on him so that he does not do something "unthinking" and "ugly" if you know what I mean."

Judy nodded lightly, almost invisibly, before she opened her mouth again to ask something else.

"You barely even know me neither, Wilder, then why did you helped me earlier today?" Judy asked, wanting to know why Wilder did so, despite the very important fact of life between of their species.

"Isn't it a quite strange if the fox is helping the bunny in the trouble, even though he knows, actually we both know, that the foxes and bunnies are the natural enemies to each others?" Judy asked.

Wilder nodded at Judy, before he spoke again.

"The world is not always friendly to such of little bunnies like you. From every darkest corner of the world, the bunny has a lot of different and hostile enemies and natural predators during their life. Not just we foxes, but also the lower and annoyed ones like the weasels and even higher and worse ones like the tigers.

"In fact, all the world will be your enemy in your life path" Wilder said.

"Because the bunnies have a lot of different enemies, smarter one of them knows when to run from danger and when to resist it if necessary. But with you, what you were thinking about, Carrots, to get yourself into the trouble like that? You should be a little more careful next time with the crew, or didn't your papa ever teach you to pick your fights a bit more carefully?" Wilder asked.

Once again, like many times before when his father was mentioned, Judy felt from inside of her uncomfortable and unforgiving. Judy then slowly turned away from Wilder saddened hidden by a disappointed expression on her face, dropping her ears down against the back of her head in the process. Judy then went back to work even though it was already done, for seeking something else to so she could forget the source of her sadness, even thiough it wasn't easy.

Wilder noticed this clearly, but he didn't know why Judy did so.

"Oh, so… your father did not teach you any sort of that, eh? He seemingly isn't quite teaching sort." Wilder guessed.

Judy briefly closed her eyes when the last and agonizing memories about her father filled her mind. After a brief moment of silence, Judy spotted the wet tear running from her left eye through on her cheek and quickly wiped it off with her paw.

"No. He didn't teach nothing to me. He was more like the taking-off-and-never-coming-back sort." Judy said quietly and no willing to talk any more about her father. Judy leaned against the railing and looked to the dark-blue sea.

Wilder sighed sympathetically and then leaned against the railing next to her.

"Sorry, Carrots. I didn't know that. Kind of, that reminds me about my own father. He also just left me behind in order to get back to the seas where he was born when I was younger, maybe eight or nine years old fox puppy." Wilder said comfortingly.

Judy then turned her head to Wilder out of curiosity.

"You're kidding, aren't you? How do you know that your father just left you behind in order to get back to the seas?" Judy asked looking at him with her purple eyes.

"My mother told me that… before she died of the disease when I was twelve." Wilder said, looking at the see the saddened-looking expression on his face when he remembered that very last and mentally painful moment with her mother.

"With her very last breaths on her bed before passing away, she also told me that since my father's sudden departure without any message for us… she has been… kind of… blaming herself for that my father just left. She thought that my father didn't partially or completely loved her because… uh… I don't know how to explain this reasonably… he found somehow out that my mother had cunningly, as some animals says about the ways of the foxes, stole my father from someone else… vixen… who has been waiting for my father in the beyond of the seas… long ago before I was born. And she believed that that's why he kind of left us behind… to return back to this someone else... vixen... or whatever, whoever and wherever she is. I've been since my mother's passing away believed my mother as "cuckoo" about all of that she told me, because to me all of that just… doesn't make any sense." Wilder said with the deep tone.

Judy then watched at the water, inspired by Wilder's words, which made her to think that did her own father left her and her mother behind for the same reason as Wilder's own father did. However, Wilder read her thoughts.

"Hey, listen, Carrots. I know excatly what you're thinking about what I did just said. All of that what I said said, about my half-cuckoo-mother telling me about the reason-making-no-sense about my father's sudden fading away from my life, doesn't mean that your own father just left you behind for the same reasons." Wilder said sternly but calmly.

This snapped Judy out of her thoughts and she turned briefly to Wilder shaking her head as agreement.

"Hey, please. we we're even, in that case, all right? My father… it's not a big deal. I don't need him anymore in my life. I'll be fine without him." Judy said quietly.

Wilder smiled widely rubbing his chin.

"Is that so, Carrots? Being in the top of the list of problem children. Is that what you call "being fine?" Wilder asked slyly.

Then Wilder turned completely to Judy and suddenly changed his tone of voice from calm and sympathetic to strict and demanding.

"Well, since the captain has put you in my charge, Carrots, you like it or not, I'll be pounding a little sense and a few skills into that thick head of yours to keep you out of trouble." Wilder said, tapping teasingly Judy on the head for three times with his finger.

Judy, waving Wilder's paw off, turned completely to Wilder, surprised.

"What?!" Judy asked.

"From now on, I'm not letting you out of me sight!" Wilder declared waving his paws.

"You gotta be kidding me, are you?" Judy asked.

"No I'm not. I mean it, Because everybody onboard of the ship are working and not lazing. The same applies to you, Carrots. If you want to be the sailor like the rest of us, as long as the journey takes, you do what either me or the captain tells you to do out of question."

"What does that mean?!" Judy asked loudly.

"It means that from now on, you won't so much as eat, sleep, nor even SCRATCH YOUR BUM without my say so! And don't try to act cute little bunny to get to me, Carrots, because acting cute does not have affect on me. Is that clear, sweetie?" Wilder finished proudly.

"Don't call me cute or sweetie, Wilder. And don't do me any favors!" Judy shouted back, greatly disliking the idea of being commanded

"Oh, you can be sure of that, my girl! You can be sure of that! Heh heh heh heh!" Wilder answered heartily laughing.

* * *

As Zoopaniola sailed through the open sea with the good winds and without setbacks on the way within the several months. Wilder kept his words by not letting Judy out of his sight and kept giving to her many kind of jobs to teach Judy that the word, "lazing" was almost virtually unknown word onboard.

Judy herself was suffering during the voyage internal struggle between of her old rebellious nature and lifestyles and her own wish to prove everybody that she can be more than just a walking disaster.

Zoopaniola had to make one stop in the harbor to fill cargo hold with the food, fresh drinking water and other supplies, during of which, Judy was ordered by Wilder to remove some sea plants from to the beach towed Zoopaniola's keel with some of the crew.

It was really hard work, because there was hundreds of different sea plants on the keel and most of them were quite stuck and won't five up easily, no matter how hard Judy tried to remove them. It was quite easy from the other crew members due of them being larger and stronger than her.

Just as the situation couldn't get any worse, the heavy rain struck, watering every crew member, including Judy, soaking wet. The land under of their feet was getting muddy and her soaking wet ears were pulling her head backwards.

"Put some elbow into it." Wilder chivied Judy, as she finally got even one sea plant removed from the keel. However, when she did so, Judy lost her balance and landed to the pile of mud.

The nearby crew members and Wilder laughed hearty at this little harmless accident as Judy, angrily mutering, climbed back on her feets. She was even, much to her annoyance, covered a double layer of mud that she almost resembled the dark-brown furred grizzly ear cub.

"Well, look at that lads. Our new little long-eared crew member still plays in the mud, even at that age." Wilde teased, causing the some crew members to laugh even more louder, much to Judy's annoyance, as she angrily wiped off the mud form her body and trampled her foot to the ground.

"Alright, enough of mud plays, Carrots. Back to work!" Wilder commanded.

"Judy snorted angrily and rolling her eyes she started to struggle with another stuck sea plant to remove it from Zoopaniola's keel."

* * *

Later on that day, Judy was in Zoopaniola's galley with Wilder, as they were together peeling potatoes for today's supper. Wilder had already peeled large number of potatoes, judging from the huge pile of potato peelings next of him.

As Wilder turned to check how Judy was doing, he saw that Judy only sat quite lazily and bored next of Wilder peeling the potatoes slowly, which is why her own pile of potato peelings was ten times much smaller than his own.

"Hurry up, Carrots. Entire crew is hungry and waiting for supper." Wilder chivied and continued his own peeling.

Judy only snorted and continued her own work.

Judy suddenly paused the peeling for a moment and turned to the rooftop of the galley, watching through of the grates on the roof how the day was falling slowly into the night.

* * *

Later in middle of the night, Judy could not sleep. He just swinging in the hammock along the ship's movements while staring at the cabin's roof anf looking out the star-filled dark-blue sky through of the grates.

And then, out of nowhere, Judy started slowly and calmly sing out of her heart.

Judy: _"I am a question to the world, Not an answer to be heard"_

The grates and the night sky brought back into Judy's mind the memory, when she was as a little child standing in front of the inn of Bunnyburrow's main room's window looking outside with her mother, desperately and sad expression on her face looking for with her purple eyes her father coming back home.

Bonnie then, as sad as her daughter, landed her paw comfortingly on Judy's shoulder until she wrapped her arms around of Judy and gave to her daughter a comforting and motherly hug.

Judy: _"Or a moment when I'm held in your arms."_

 **(** Present day **)**

Back in the present, late in the evening of another day, Wilder and Judy were in one of the ship's mast's lower crow's nests, where Wilder was trying to teach how to make a good and sturdy knot to already bored and dejected Judy who sat lazily next of him holding the rope.

Judy: _"And what do you think you'd ever say, I won't listen anyway. You don't know"_

Wilder then turned to his rope and made quickly and easily one knot as example and showed it to Judy, only to surprisingly find out that Judy had suddenly disappeared from the nest.

Wilder observed quickly down from the nest to the deck and spotted Judy walking lazily in the deck, much to Wilder's annoyance that that bunny just skipped the lesson.

Judy: _"And I'll never be what you want me to be."_

However, Wilder then spotted Judy's rope which was tied to crow's nest while rest of the rope was hanging from the nest and almost reaching to the deck. Wilder quickly grabbed Judy's rope and was surprised when he noticed that there was exactly a similiar good and sturdy knot like in the rope of his own he made two minutes ago.

Wilder was flabbergasted that Judy had figured out so quickly how to make such of knot even without paying any attention to his teaching.

Wilder then took the proud smile on his face and looked after Judy while shaking his head.

"Sly bunny." Was all what Wilder was able to say.

On the next day, Judy had found herself once again scrubbing the deck with the brush and wearing the white apron. It was long and tiresome work. Judy could almost feel her paws being blistered and her kneels raw after spending so much time in the kneeling position and scrubbing the hard wooden deck.

Judy: _"And what do you think you'd understand, I'm a girl - No, I'm a woman, You can't take me and throw me away."_

Sweating and exhausted Judy was about to take a break until Wilder suddenly arrived behind of her to watch over her work.

Annoyed by the fox's sudden appearance to stalk her like that, Judy stood up on her feet and defiantly confronted him but Wilder only gave to her new a bucket of soapy water and pointed with his finger to where she had missed a spot.

Judy snorted in annoyance and, unable to protest the hard labor given to her by the fox, who was in charge of her, Judy spread the soapy water to the deck and started once again to scrub the deck.

Scrubbing the deck launched Judy's another memory, in which she was playing with her toy ships in the floor of the main room of Inn of Bunnyburrow by trying to fit the mast to her toy ship before playing, until her father suddenly entered from the door to the Inn.

Judy: _"And how can you learn what's never shown, Yeah, you stand here on your own"_

Judy eagerly stood up and showed her ship to her father, pleading him to come to play with her. However, her ignored her, only stroked her head and walked to the stairs, leaving Judy to play alone with her toys.

Juddy lowered her ears as she watched after her water, clearly saddened of that and with the lightly watering eyes, Judy kneeled down on the floor to play

Judy: _"They don't know me, 'Cause I'm not here."_

 **(** Present night **)**

Judy had sneaked away from the gabin and climbed to stand on the top of Zoopaniola's bowsprit.

Completely in her own thoughts and memories, Judy watched at the open dark-blue sea and star-filled night sky whilke feeling the cold night wind bloving against her faces and letting her ears to wave with the wind.

While standing there, Judy started to sing her song much louder.

Judy: _"And I want a moment to be real, Want to touch things I don't feel"_

On one of the passed nights night, Judy was sitting on the galley's stairs drinking some hot coffee and eating the sandwich as evening snack after the long and hard day.

Just when she was about to take a new sip from her coffee, Judy's sharp ears catched Wilder-sounding voice behind of the corner and dared out of curiosity to check what Wilder was doing in the galley.

Wilder was at the moment telling some amazing stories to some sailors, who had gathered around of the table to listen him, with the enjoying expression on the faces of all of them. some of them even burst out laughing if some part in Wilder's stories amused them. Wilder also used often the shadows he made with his fingers with the help of the candles on the table, the map with the home-made ships and also the octopus tentacles attached to his left paw's fingers and beheaded head of the shark in his right one to make his stories much more interesting and exciting.

Judy was like she didn't payed much interest nor attention to Wilder's, but over time, Judy couldn't help it anymore if she started slowly enjoy Wilder's storytellings every night. Judy dared to give even a sweet bunny smile at Wilder as he was telling his current story.

Judy: _"Wanna hold on and feel I belong."_

On the next day, after the dinner, Judy had found herself once aagain in one of the most nightmarish jobs on her entire life; the dishing the dishes.

Judy: _"And how can the world want me to change, They're the ones that stay the same, They don't know me"_

Wearing once again apron, Judy cleaned the dirty dishes sitting in the next of the big bucket full of soapy water. When Judy had just finished her the last plate from two dozen other plates and a few saucepan, Wilder, with the help of gorilla sailor, suddenly arrived and brought to her a new boatload of filthy dishes and departed with the sly grin on his face.

Judy couldn't believe this. The pile of filthy dishes she was staring with the widened eyes and her mouth hanging open in unbelief, was by its size at least ten times bigger than the first one or compared to her own size.

However, Judy grabbed to the large pot and started furiously scrubbing a dirty pot while glaring at departing Wilder with the disgusted look on her face.

Judy: _"'Cause I'm not here."_

Hours later, the job was done for good but Judy was too exhausted from the dishing the entire ship's dishing to move out of the galley. In fact, she had even fallen asleep due of working so hard and so long, resting her head on top of the pot and her arm around of it.

Judy: _"And you see the things they never see, All you wanted I could be…"_

Wilder arrived to the galley at first the surprised expression on his face seeing Judy fallen asleep. until he spots all dishes clean and all in order in the nearby table and the wall.

Seeing all of this and Judy's exhausted form asleep, Wilder started to think while rubbing his neck that maybe he had been too harsh to this bunny by forcing her to work so hard.

So, for the pity and moved by the exhausted bunny's sweet and soft sleeping form, Wilder decides to carry her to the gabin rather than awake her. In the gabin, Wilder gently set Judy on her hammock and covered her with his own jacket before leaving.

As he departed, Judy briefly woke up from her slumber and noticed Wilder walking up in the stairs out from the gabin, before falling asleep again.

Judy: _"Now you know me, And I'm not afraid."_

On the next day, Wilder and Nick were together preparing one of Zoopaniola's longboats to launch.

Judy: _"And I want to tell you who I am, Can you help me be a woman"_

While preparing the longboat by following Wilder's instructions from removing the longboat's protective rain coating to loosening the mooring lines to land the boat carefully into the water, Judy gave once again a sweet bunny smile at Wilder, as a sign that she had been started to warm to the fox.

They lowered together the heavy longboat by the ropes to the water and Wilder then climbed at first down the ladders on the side of the ship to the boat.

Judy watched from the railing Wilder's going as Wilder reached into the longboat, untied the ropes and prepared the boat's little sectional mast as the boat was slowly floating away from the ship.

Judy: _"They can't break me, As long as I know who I am."_

But since when Wilder didn't paid any attention at Judy and the boat was slowly floating away from the ship, This sight reminded her of all the memories the most painful and eternally haunting memory, when she was back then between seven and eight years of age. Her smile slowly fell from her lips as she remembered that day very well like the yesterday.

When the morning dawned, Judy was lazily sleeping in her bedroom, until her sharp sense of hearing suddenly catched someone slamming loudly the Inn's door shut. Startled Judy quickly jumped up from her bed and rushed to the window of her room, seeing to her shock that her father was walking towards the pier, where a small sailboat was waiting for him.

Judy: _"They can't tell me who to be, 'Cause I'm not what they see."_

Judy quickly rushed down the stairs to the main room, where she finds her mother sitting on the table next of the large window, watching after her departing husband and crying bitterly over of his leaving.

Judy quickly rushed outside of the inn and watched with the shocked and tearful eyes as her father reached to the pier, without even looking behind of their house nor showing any sign to say goodbye to her daughter and wife.

Judy quickly rushed to the road after him, desperately hoping to catch him and beg him to stay with her and her mother, even calling her father with the tearful tone.

Judy: _"Yeah, the world is still sleepin', while I keep on dreaming for me."_

Judy has reached half of the road while his father had entered to his sailboat and prepared to take off, ignoring all her daughter's desperate calls for him and pleads to stay.

Judy: _"And their words are just whispers and lies, That I'll never believe."_

Judy's father's sailboat's sails then catched the wind and Judy's father's sailboat started to float away from the pier, at the same time as Judy reached to the pier and rushed to the end of the pier and stretched out her paw as the last desperate attempt to catch her father's sailboat to prevent it and her father from leaving…

…only to be too late when the sailboat had reached too far away from the end of the pier, leaving deeply shocked and saddened Judy behind.

Judy: _"And I want a moment to be real, Want to touch things I don't feel."_

 **(** Present day **)**

After Wilder had got the preperations of the longboat finished, he motioned with the hearty smile on his face Judy to jump to the boat. Judy snapped out from her bad memory and the eager and happy smile returned on her face. Judy then without hesitation jumped from the railing onto the longboat to be catched from the air by Wilder and together they started to row a bit far away from the ship.

Wilder started then to explain to Judy how to sail with the longboat equipped with the small mast and sail, but Judy was a fast learner, and already had knowledge on how to sail with the sailboats what she had done back home.

Judy: _"Wanna hold on and feel I belong."_

Before Wilder could say more, Judy already made quickly everything ready and before Wilder was even able to be prepared, Judy opened the sail, tightened them up with bare paws and witn the strong air flow the boat shot off in the speed of the wind.

Judy: _"And how can you say I'll never change, They're the ones that stay the same."_

They were quite near of the Flow of the Gigantic Waves, the sea flow which appeared as the moving gigantic waves like tsunamies.

With the sly grin on her face, Judy piloted the longbow towwards the flow's gigantic waves and before warning and playfully ignoring Wilder's protesting word "No!" Judy quickly turned the boat on the the wave's path and lowered the sails. After that, they began to rapidly rise with a fast-moving wave to the heights far above of the sea surface, much to Wilder's surprise and even horror but much to Judy's joy.

Judy: _"I'm the one now. 'Cause I'm still here."_

When their boat finally reached the peak of a wave, which was about to smash to the sea surface, Judy turned the boat around and with in the speed of the wind, the boat started to ran rapidly down the side of the wave, until the peak of a wave started to lean sharply forward over of them and then the peak of the wave eventually smashed into the surface, forming the water tunnel inside of it.

Showing no fear in her eyes, Judy piloted the boat inside and through of the water tunnel against its watery walls with the well controlled moves (like today's surfers.)

Judy even started to pull a bunch of crazy stunts, jumps and even spins through the water tunnel, screaming with joy.

Wilder was holding onto his hat and the side of the boat, clearly taken by surprise of Judy's high and quite audacious skills, and possibly slightly fearful for the possible consequences to "surf" insside of the dangerous waves of the Flow of the Gigantic Waves.

But unlike Wilder, Judy only laughed loudly and heartily while piloting the boat. It felt good to hear the rumble and splashes of the gigantic wave and feel the cold salt water on her face.

This was what Judy had kind of waited for from this adventure before reaching to the end of their way.

Judy: _"I'm the one. 'Cause I'm still here. I'm still here, I'm still here."_

After when Judy piloted the boat out from the closing water tunnel, until they were safely on the water surface, Judy and Wilder shared together the common hearty laugh at the awesome moment.

Wilder took proudly smiling expression on his face as he briefly removed his had from her head waving it in the air and put it then back on his head, after which he landed with the hearty laugh his paw over as well laughing Judy's shoulders.

And Judy… for the first time of her entire life since her father's departure without any reason… she felt herself deeply happy and enjoying her life again for the years.

Eventually, when the day began to gradually turn to night, they took a course back to Zoopaniola.

* * *

 **I hope that you enjoyed this Chapter.**  
 **Next Chapter is coming out soon.  
**


	5. Chapter 5: Endless Maelstrom

**HELLO FRIENDS, FOLLOWERS AND FANS.  
FIFTH CHAPTER OF TREASURE TROPOLIS IS FINALLY OUY.  
I HOPE YOU'LL ENJOY IT.**

* * *

It was the night, when Judy and Wilder finally reached back to the ship.

Together Judy and Wilder dismantled the mast of the longboat and tied up the ropes to bow and stern of the longboat, and after the boat was prepared to be lifted onto the deck, they both climbed aboard and started to pull on the securing ropes to pull the boat up to the boat.

Wilder then started to breath heavily.

"What it is, Wilder? You having a little trouble there?" Judy playfully asked while pulling the boat up from the bow side.

"Oh, get away from me." Wilder laughed heartily while pulling the boat from the stern side.

Wheen the longboat was up from the water, Judy and Wilder started to move it the inside of the railing and place it back ot the boat rack and cover it with the protective tarpaulin.

"Oh, Judy, you know what? lf l could maneuver a skiff like that when l was your age... the people would be bowing in the streets when l walked by today." Wilder said with the hearty tone, greatly impressed from Judy's skills.

"The people would be bowing in the streets when l walked by today!" Captain Flint, who had appeared to Wilder's shoulders, imitated his master's words.

Wilder then collapsed to the bench on the deck next of the mast after tying up a boat's mooring rope, which made sure that the boats did not escaped from the racks during of the ship's a rocking motion or in the storm.

"Nah, l don't know, Wilder. The people weren't exactly singing my praises when l left home. Leodore even wanted to throw me into the jail because of my trouble making skills." Judy said and collapsed herself down to the bench next of railing after tying up another mooring rope around of the boat.

"Oh, yeah? and for what kind of skills, if may I ask?" Wilder said.

The wide smile appeared on Judith's lips as she remembered those times when she had accidentally got Leodore humiliated before this voyage.

"Well, before this entire voyage, I rode with my Hurricane-horse as the free spirit through the fields of my home-island and I... well... uh... paid kind of the harmeless shortcut through the sugar plantation, to where the going was forbidden to civilians. No one didn't hurt, but I accidentally surprised the group of Leodore's soldiers on the break from behind of the corner of the storehouse and one of the soldiers, an elephant, collapsed ontot he pile of the wine barrels draining the wine everywhere and tripped the entire patrol to the ground. Then I and Hurricane, leaped from the edge of thr cliff next of Leodore's mansion through of the window of Leodore's dining room at the moment when he was in there eating some breakfast. We landed on his table, right in the place where the plate filled with breakfast was standing. As a result his clothes, as well as dinning table, finest carpet and freshly washed flooring got dirty by his won food and the mud and soil from the horse's hooves while we rode inside of his mansion. From that, Leodore got totally mad at me." Judith said, remembering well that day.

Wilder looked at Judy with the amused expression on his face but he wasn't seemingly impressed. He only shooked his head before he spoke again.

"Dirty clothes, tables, carpets and floor? Is that all you got, Carrots? That trick is too cheap for being placed into the jail... well, except of that total waste of good wine. Even a little child can do such of mess Tell me something better, please." Wilder asked.

Judy tried to remember another time when he was accidentally humiliated Lionheart.

"Well, I accidentally once caused his horse fly off the handle in the market area when his horse's butt leaned against my pitchfork's spikes when I was bringing hay for the cows. His horse went out of control and stampeded and jumped around of the market area and when it run from the next of the terraced inn, the horse's jumping movement got Leodore to hit his head or his face against the inn's hanging signs. But the best part is, that when I tried to sneak away from the scene, Leodore's horse stampeded right pass of me but Leodore's pants get stuck to my pitchfork's spikes, ripping Leodore's pants off. I still remember how the townpeople laughed at that sight; Leodore without pants."

Wilder laughed heartily.

"The humiliation had to be great if the half of the town laughed at the lion without the pants." He said, while scratching Flint from under of his chin.

"Anything else?"

Judy thought for a while yet a new memory image of Leodore's accidental humiliation.

"Well, I once accidentally pushed two wooden carts full of beehives and honey jars down from the top fo the hill, which was standing right next of Leodore's mansion's yard, where was going on Leodore's family's parties. The carts rolled down the hill into Leodore's parties, where the hives and jars eventually broke. The lion was then all covered by the honey and then... he was attacked by the army of bees, maybe angry for the lose of their homes or then they were attached by the smell of the sweet honey. The lion... plus all lions from his party... spent after the incident about two weeks in the hospital, because even though he had just a few bee stings... that big sourpuss lion was of course allergic to the bees and he was after that incident swollen like the fat red elephant."

Now Wilder laughed louder and more heartily than ever before since they departure from the port. Even Captain Flint joined to his master with the monkey-like giggle.

Even Judy could no longer hold herself, but burst out into loud and hearty bunny-giggle.

Wilder then took some breath and wiped the sweat from his face.

"No wonder if you were called a Problem Child Number One. Maybe you should earn the nickname, such as... Judith Laverne Hawkins, The Nightmare of Leodore's Invaluable Pride, or short of." Wilder said.

Judy giggled as respond.

"Maybe, Wilder. All to be honest, as a few years younger that what I am right now, I loved a little bit tease and make fun at the expense of Leodore with all kinds of pranks. My mom never liked the ways in which I treated the governor, so she put me under house arrest whenever I was caught for one of my pretty harmless little pranks. I just couldn't help it if I was too prone to temptation to do a little trick to Leodore, maybe because he's such of sourpuss and an easy target for the pranks or maybe due of frustration... or then the great lack of discipline." Judy said, lowering her head and her ears a little bit down against the back of her head, a bit ashamed-looking expression on her face.

Then, Judy raised her ears and her head back up again and looked at Wilder.

"But now, those days as a problem child of mine are over. Now l'm gonna change my habits... to become much more better person than I was before. Now I'm seriously decided to show to everyone that I can be also something else and something much better than just a walking disaster." Judy said with the exhausted smile on her face.

"Are you really, how so?" Wilder asked quite curiously while smoothing the Flint's fur in the top of the moniey's head.

Judy went briefly speechless due of such of question. In fact, she had no any idea how she was gonna prove her true worthiness to the others. All the time Judy had used on board, was to learn something about the heavy sense of responsibility on board what she had lacked mostly back home, that she had no time to think the way to prove it.

"Uh, I'll get eventually some plan... to make people see me competely a different bunny. Then, even Leodore cannot call me "a little brat" ever again after this voyage is over and done." Judy answered quite vaguely, placing her paws behind her head and leaned back against the railing, a relaxed smile on her face.

Wilder then found himself almost without the words after what Judy just said, before he got something to say back.

"Oh. Well, sometimes, the plans can go suddenly astray, Carrots." Wilder warned with a calm tone, but Judy didn't care.

"Nope. Not this time. You'll see." Judy answered confidently.

Wilder only shrugged at this, until he turned to his right wooden leg, which he raised with his paws over his left one and rubbed with his paw to make it feel a bit better for his old leg. Then he loosened the belts around of his leg and removed his worn wooden leg from the stump on his shin and then replaced it with a new fresh one. After putting the wooden leg in its place, Wilder tightened the belts around of his leg to make sure that the wooden leg remained firmly in place.

This caught Judy's attention.

The smile quickly disappeared from her face as she gazed at Wilder's amputated leg and his crippled walking style with the crutch. Judy also gazed at the long and quite bad scar across his faces and the one branching across of Wilder's right eye, which was covered with the eye patch sewn around of his right eye's area and yet his black burned arm. And yet one of his ears had been shredded seemingly by the savagely way.

Seeing all those amputations and scars, Judy started to deeply feel sorry for the fox and his physical sufferings.

"So, uh, how'd all of that happen to you anyway?" Judy asked referring his physical damages.

Wilder gave her the look which was almost mourning expression over his physical losses and incurable scars he beared the rest of his life.

Then Wilder removed the glove from his right paw, revealing once again to Judy this burnt paw and arm, which flesh was black and almost solid.

"All kinds of bad accidents happens to everyone on the sea and only a few ones are able to return home in one pieces. Seafaring is always dangerous, and it always requires its price... But what excatly happened to me…"

Wilder went briefly silent as he examined his burnt arm solemnly but also sadly.

"As I told you earlier back in the deck, Carrots... All the world will be your enemy... and it also concerns us foxes, not just bunnies, but at a much different way than what with the rabbits." Wilder answered quietly.

"For example...?" Judy asked curiously but also pityingly.

Wilder remained briefly quiet before he spoke again.

"The world is mostly unfriendly towards the foxes, due to the fact that they are too blind to see us, even honest ones of us, in a way in which the animals should see even half of us. Most of the animals, who sometimes resorts inadmissibly to prejudices, believes my kind to be the most cunning and deceitful animals of all. Because of those prejudices and many of those ridiculous rumors told about us behind of our back, we foxes are perpetually the most neglected, discriminated, untrustworthy, sometimes traumatically harassed from the young age and even persecuted by the other animals."

"That's why the most of the foxes believes that they're never eligible for any other purpose... except to be sold as the slave to the rich sourpusses or forced to work as a slave in the sugar plantations and being treated inmammalely (inhumanely) by the ruthless taskmasters until death. Some of us resorts to the street life or even turning to the piracy in order to survive in a world filled with prejudice and be what the others mostly expect from the foxes..."

Wilder paused for a moment, still looking solemnly at his burnt arm.

"And in my case... you give up a few things...chasing a lifelong dream." Wilder replied quietly.

Judy looked at Wilder with the sympathetic look on her face, guessing clearly that, judging from the sad-looking expression on Wilder's face, Wilder had also encountered prejudice targeted to the foxes before by the other animals while chasing something what he just called "a lifelong dream of his" and had heavily suffered from it physically.

Judy felt deeply symphathy towards Wilder and pity for his losses, even though he was the fox.

"Was it worth it?" Judy asked cautiously and with sympathetic tone.

Wilder took the look at Judy and smiled heartily at the rabbit. Wilder put the glove back on his paw before he stood up and moved to sit beside Judy, draping his arm and part of his jacket over Judy's shoulder and body.

Feeling the fox warm arm around of her shoulder inside of the fox jacket, Judy purred out of satisfaction and warmth. It was quite cold tonight and being inside of Wilder's jacket and his arm on her shoulders caused Judy to feel so warm and gozy. Judy also snuggled inside of Wilder jacket for warmth.

Judy then turned her smiling face at Wilder, who smiled at her back.

"I'm hoping it is, Carrots. I most surely am." Wilder said as he pulled his hat over his eyes and leaning back to relax.

Judy also closed her eyes and leaned her head against of Wilder's arm and relaxed with Wilder.

But then...  
 **  
**Suddenly, their relaxation was interrupted when the ship suddenly and unexpectedly lurched sharply to the side, which tossed both Judy and Wilder and most of the loose cargo to the other side of the deck.

Both Judy and Nick landed roughly against the main mast, before the ship returned to a flat position and they were able to get back on their feet.

As some of the crew members, who were slumbering below decks and were suddenly woke up by the ship's sudden sudden shake, gathered to the deck, Wilder quickly rushed to the railing to check what's going on.

"What the devil is happening?" Wilder exclaimed.

"Is it the pirate attack?!"

Dr. Otterton came out from his cabin and rushed to the railing to look at the sea.

He noticed that at some distance from them, but not far away, was coming towards of them a large amount of the dark clouds, which had accumulated together in the sky, covering the beautiful fark-blue and star-filled night sky into a thick and vicious darkness beneath of them.

There was heard the rumbling among the clouds, growing howling wind and the crew was able to see frequent lightning beneath of the clouds.

Otterton was already aware that what kind of danger they were about to face.

"Good heavens.! We're heading to the storm!" Dr. Otterton exclaim as he watched the dark clouds, which extend over a large area in the sky.

"And not just any one storm, but a HURRICANE!"

the darkness soon reached upon Zoopaniola and soon it began to rain pouring. Also the waves started to grow threateningly.

"All hands, prepare for the upcoming storm immediately! Mr. Redfur, to the helm and be ready for anything!" Captain Susan shouted as she rushed quickly towards the bridge on the position.

"Aye-aye, Captain!" Redfur shouted and rushed to the helm.

As Zoopaniola sailed further to the storm, one of the crew members started to sound the ship's bell as alarm to call the ship's crew on the deck immediately.

As harsh wind and huge waves started to frown stronger and reach to Zoopaniola, the entire crew, also Judy, rushed quickly to their positions all dressed in raincoats.

"All hands, fasten your lifelines!" Mr. Bogo bellowed.

Everyone onboard, also Leodore's soldiers, ran from everywhere towards the main mast of the ship, where the piles of rope were lying on the deck next of the main mast waiting to be used in the such of situations like this. Everyone began tie a line of rope around of their waist and to a post attached to the mast to prevent the crew members from being washed from the deck to the sea by the growing waves.

Wilder almost expected that Judy was about to go under deck for during the storm in fear, but instead, he saw that Judy was fearlessly standing next of him tying a line of rope around of her body and to a post of the mast and preparing for the storm.

"All right, Carrots. Get ready, this is gonna be rough!" Wilder warned as he tied his own a line of rope around of him.

The rogue wind howled and shaked dangerously Zoopaniola.

The huige storm waves hammered Zoopaniola's every side like the hammers, pussing the ship uncontrollably out of its course.

One of the massive wave smashed through the captain's stateroom's windows and water flooded inside, messing everything inside of there.

The water flooded mercilessly to the deck and even inside of under deck, where some of the crew members fight to seal the cannon deck's cannon hatches, as well as tie up the cargo together to prevent it move around in the cargo hold during the storm and bale out the excessive bilge water that it would not increase the weight of the ship dangerously and eventually to sink the ship.

The thunder roared with the deafening sound among the dark storm clouds.

The fierce thunderbolts struck into the water on all sides of Zoopaniola, lighting up the black stormy sky briefly with the white flash.

Everybody on the deck got wet in the seconds under the harsh downpour.

Couple of the sails got the huge damage. The thunderbolts struck through of them causing the huge and barely flaming holes on them and the rogue wild tore one of them to shreds and threatened to rip the rest of the sails to the shreds.

Seeing this, Susan quickly turned to Mr. Bogo.

"Mr. Bogo! Secure those sails!" Susan ordered from the bridge.

"Secure all sails! Reef them down. men!" Mr. Bogo relayed to the crew.

By the order, almost everyone started climbing up towards the sails.

Mr. Israel Grey led at the head a small group of the crew members, including Finnick, female cheetah, raccoon brothers, woodchuck, badger and polar bear, through of the shroads towards the sails to reef them down and prevent them to from suffering more damages.

From another shrouds, grey wolf followed wildebeest, ram, black jaguar and gorilla hurried to the sails while other crew on the deck loosened the ropes that held the sails tight.

Even Judy, fearless expression on her face, climbed through the shrouds heading to the very top of the bow mast. She was accompanied by Wilder, who climbed right behind of her, and with them were also Jack the squirrel, Baggy the badger, Fabienne Growley and White Fang the white wolf heading towards the rigging to take down .

After they reached to the rigging, they started to reef the sail down together.

The crew had a bit troubles with the keeping their balance in the sails and on the deck because the waves hammering Zoopaniola's sides with the hard pushes and the rogue wind swung the ship threateningly.

The rogue wind also tossed the ship from the large wave to another wave and the ship tipped momentarily but threateningly on the waves, almost turning the ship upside down.

Ignoring this, Judy continued to reef the sail with Wilder.

Suddenly, the lightning stroke unexpectedly right between of her and Wilder, snapping the rigging in half… and unfortunately, cutting at the same time Wilder's own lifeline.

Wilder fell with the part of rigging to the sea.

"WILDER! NO!" Judy cried as she watched in shock and horror as Wilder plop into the stormy and waving water.

Knowing that Zoopaniola does not have a chance to change course in middle of a fierce hurricane, meaning that the ship would then be forced to leave the fox behind to drown, Judy left her position in the rigging and quickly jumped from the mast into the stormy water and after Wilder.

"Fox and rabbit overboard!" Duke yelled from the crown's nest.

"Wilder! I'm coming! Hang on!" Judy yelled after Wilder as she started to swim as fast as she was able to swim in the waving and storming water towards Wilder, who tried desperately stay afloat and screaming for help.

Dr. Otterton and captain Mchorn, alerted by Duke's cry from the mast about Fox and rabbit getting overboard, spotted Judy a small distance from Zoopaniola swimming away from the ship to the storming sea.

"Judy! What do you think you're doing?! Come back!" Otterton yelled after Judy, but the bunny only kept swimming.

"Hawkins! Come back! Have you completely lost your mind!" Mchorn yelled more loudly after swimming bunny.

Both Otterton and McHorn knew that yelling after Judy was hopeless because of rumbling thunder and howling wind.

Judy swam hurriedly towards the fox ignoring the drowning downpour and slamming waves around of her in order to reach ot the fox before her own lifeline would tightens as Zoopaniola was slowly but certainly sailing away from them.

"Wilder! Grab my paw!" Judy yelled through of the rain and wind so loud as she could to Wilder after almost reaching to him.

Wilder, after spotting Judy among the stormy waves, stretched out his own paw towards Judy's when she was still swimming towards him.

Judy had to keep hurry, because Zoopaniola was sailing away and she did not know how much time she had left to save Wilder before her lifeline's range would end or then get tightened too early before she could reach to Wilder.

Judy managed to grab from Wilder's paw…

...JUST IN TIME...

...before her lifeline tightened and they were both pulled after the ship.

Holding tighly from each other, Judy and Wilder swam back to the ship with the help of the crew, mostly Peter Moosebridge, Claw the Cougar, Dr. Otterton, Mchorn and some of Leodore's soldiers, who were pulling them back by pulling on Judy's lifeline and finally the soaking wet and hammered fox and rabbit reached to the ship's ladders on its side.

"Thanks, Carrots! You saved my life!" Wilder thanked with the wide and from the swimming exhausted smile, patting Judy on the shoulder.

Judy gave to him a smile as respond.

Then she helped Wilder with with the help of Dr. Otterton to climb back to the deck, before she was herself helped up to the deck by Dr. Otterton.

"Judy! What was that all about?! You could have got yourself killed and even left behind! Don't ever do that again!" Otterton scolded loudly at soaking wet bunny.

"But, Otterton, I had to save Wilder from drowing. I had no choice and…" Judy tried to explain unti she was interrupted by the loud rumbling from nearmy of the ship.

"Waterspout on the port!" Duke shouted the warning cry from the crown's nest.

Otterton, Judy and Wilder turned to the direction from where the rumbling was coming from, and when they did, they gasped in horror.

A gigantic gray-blue waterspout… bigger than Zoopaniola itself… showed up through the dark fog brought by the hurricane...

...and Zoopaniola was right on its path.

It approached Zoopaniola very fast and the thunderous sound grew to the deafening level and the rain water filled winds started to get stronger.

"What is all of this swinging and that accursed sound out here?!" soaking wet Leodore roared as he came out from his cabin.

But when the lion gazed at the see to the direction to where everyone on board looked at, Leodore spotted a gigantic waterspout heading straight for Zoopaniola and roared in the childish panic and quickly jumped inside of the largest barrel on the deck to hide.

"All hands, brace yourself!" Mr. Bogo yelled to the crew.

As the waterspout get closer and closer, every crew member braced themselves or jumped in panic into hiding to anywhere around the deck, from where they hoped to get cover from the approaching doom.

Judy and Wilder stared both in horror at the gigantic waterspout, which was anymore mere inches away from the ship.

The waterspout nearly swallowed Zoopaniola inside of its deadly embrace.

But when the waterspout was about to collide with Zoopaniola, it suddenly slowed down for a bit and to everyone's amazement, it changed its course to another direction, moving away from Zoopaniola without harming the ship in any way.

The entire crew slowly get up on their feets following with their eyes the fading waterspout and they were as extremely relieved about to cheer up their sudden survival from the waterspout...

...until they soon realized that their joy was too premature.

After the waterspout moved away from the ship, it revealed to the crew that there was three another rogue waterspouts behind of this one they just narrowly passed.

There was also two another waterspouts more in starboard.

They were surrounded by wild and quickly and unpredictably moving waterspouts, nearly leaving to them no way to escape from the surround.

And much to their horror, the water in middle of the waterspouts suddenly started to swirl on the surface and move Zoopaniola with the tide towards the central of the surround.

There they saw that there was the great hole in middle of the sea, which expanded wider and wider, deepened down under the surface and began to swirl faster down to the hole. The thunderbolts struck to the center of the hole and even the clouds above the swirling water started to swirl with the water.

The Water, which was flowing towards the central hole, caught Zoopaniola with it and the large waves pushed Zoopaniola with every strike of the wave closer and closer to the edge of the central hole.

"Captain! Do you see this?! Do you see this?!" Duke yelled in panic in the crown's nest.

Susan and Otterton standed together on the bridge and watched the swirling water and the central hole in the sea. There was not fear in Susan's face, due of having seen such of things before but Otterton was horrified as he recognized the such of natural phenomenon.

"Oh, my gosh! It… it is… ENDLESS MAELSTROM!" Otterton shriek.

"We are at its mercy! We're being pulled in!" Redfur exclaimed as he fought with the helm until the wave knocked him off from the helm.

"Oh, no, you don't!" Susan shouted and quickly crabbed the helm while standing on two Leodore's bear soldier's arms.

Susan tried to turn the ship away from the maelstrom, but without the sails the ship was not able to do anything else but turn around and the ship was still uncontrollably approaching the maelstrom.

Then, a new wave stroke to the ship sending it closer of the hole and the wave also flooded with the force to the deck, knocking everyone down to the deck.

The wave also caught couple crew members, who would be without their lifelines wiped overboard along the wave to the sea and to the certain doom in the maelstrom.

The waves and the wind shook Zootopia violently, but ignoring all to the deck flooding waves and the rogue winds, Susan kept fighting on the ship's helm.

"Blast these waves and waterspouts! They're so deucedly erratic!" Susan shouted while wiping off some water from her face.

"Maybe captain, but maybe we can take advantage of it after all. According to calculations and the movements of the waves, the next wave is about to hit us in two minutes and fourty-seven point two seconds and its followed by the bigger one which will push us into the center ot the maelstrom!" Otterton shouted.

"How does that knowledge help us out of this, Otterton." Susan shouted back demanding an answers.

"Well, the water swirls faster inside of the maelstrom near of its center hole and there's also the strongest air flows. After we've been pushed out there by the gigantic wave, together the swirling water inside of the maelstrom and air flows in the level of our masts could push us far away from the eye of the storm!" Otterton explained.

"The push of the wave… the faster swirling inside of the maelstrom… the strongest air flows?" Susan muttered to herself thinking fast all what Otterton just explained.

And then, she got an idea.

"Of course! Brilliant, Otterton! With help of all of them together we have a chance to get out of here alive!" Susan exclaimed, a determined smile upon her face.

Then Mr. Bogo rushed to captain's side.

"All sails secured, Captain!" Mr. Bogo reported.

"Good man! Now, prepare the men to release all sails on my mark immediately!" Susan ordered.

Mr. Bogo became confused about the order Susan just gave before he spoke again.

"But captain! We just got them all down! What's going on up there?" Mr. Bogo protested with the confused tone.

"No time to explain, Mr. Bogo! Just do it!" Susan shouted back.

Still a bit confused and even hesitated to delieve the order to the crew, Mr. Bogo nodded and turned immediately to Mr. Israel Grey's gang of the crew members who were just about to land to the deck from the shrouds.

"You heard the captain, men! Return immediately on your positions and prepare to unfurl those sails on captain's mark!" Bogo ordered.

All men gasped in confusion and many of them started immediately protested at the contradictory orders.

"What?!" Yelled the female cheetah in confusion.

"But did we no just finished..." One of the raccoons tried to protest.

"... tying those damned sails down!" Another raccoons yelled more louder and rudely at Mr. Bogo for his brother.

"I SAID, RETURN IMMEDIATELY ON YOUR POSITIONS AND PREPARE TO RELEASE THE SAILS!" Mr. Bogo shouted more louder, accepting no angry protests from the crew.

"Whatever!" The polar bear shouted furiously and started to climb back to the shrouds the angrily mutering raccoons right behind of him.

"Climb up and take the sails down, climb up afterwards and release the sails." The woodchuck sailor muttered scornfully at Mr. Bogo as he started to climb to the shrouds.

"If you want unfurl them, then climb up and unfurl them by yourself, Buffalo-Butt!" The sailor added mockingly.

"Yeah! Make up your blooming minds!" Finnick shouted.

"Yeah! Take that!" The badger shouted mockingly at Mr. Bogo and started to glimb after the rest of the men.

Only Israel Grey remained silent and stayed briefly behind, staring at Mr. Bogo and the others on the bridge the murderous look in his narrowed golden eyes. The fox growled in anger and squeezed his fists together.

Then, his angered eyes still at Mr. Bogo, turned around and started to climb up after the others on his position in the riggings.

By Susan's orders, Mr. Bogo joined them, climbing up the shrouds towards the sails

Judy started to climb up to the shrouds as well, until Susan called to her.

"Mrs. Hawkins! Make sure all lifelines are secured good and tight!" Susan ordered.

"Aye-aye Captain! I'm on my way" Judy replied, quickly saluted at Susan and then she jumped down from the shrouds and sprinting to carry out her orders as fast as possible.

Half of the crew were at the moment reached on their positions in the riggings and prepared themselves to release the sails, waiting for captain's mark.

Mr. Bogo had reached the very top of the Zoopaniola's main mast and ordered men to be ready to release the sails.

Unoticed by him, Israel Grey had sneaked to next of him and prepared himself to release the sail with him.

Meanwhile on the deck, Judy was pulling one by one on all the lifelines, making sure they were tightly tied around the posts lining the main mast until every last one was checked and secured.

"Lifelines secured, captain!" Judy shouted to Susan after she was finished.

"Excellent, Mrs. Hawkins!" Susan replied.

Dr. Otterton looked out to the sea and spotted the wave, which was heading straight for them.

"Captain! The wave is coming!" Otterton shouted.

"Get ready!" Susan shouted to the men in the regging and quickly turned the ship just as the wave was about to hit the starboard side of Zoopaniola.

The wave pushed the ship off the edge and started to move it deeper into the maelstrom, near of the borders of faster swirling water.

"Now! Release the sails and prepare to tighten them!" Susan shouted to the mast.

Mr. Bogo, Israel Grey and the men quickly released the sails and prepared to tighten them.

"Captain! Wave on the port, right behind of us!" Peter Moosebridge warned.

However, the warning came too late.

This wave took the ship completely out of surprise

This wave pushed unexpectedly the ship from the tern, knocking everybody on the deck over to the deck.

Just when it seems things couldn't get any worse, they do! The very same wave, which had pushed Zoopaniola into the maelstrom, rolled over the edge of maelstrom down towards Zoopaniola while the wave pushed the ship towards the rolling wave.

""Look out!" Baggy shouted as warning as the wave hit them.

The ship remained violently between the waves as they collided to each others, and while the rolling wave flooded violently over Zoopaniola's deck, the pushing wave seemed to dragging the ship beneath of the wave. The violent and strong water masses nearly dragged the entire Zoopaniola, not counting the masts, under water and threatened to fill the ship with the water and sink the whole vessel.

The ship also went out of control when the wave knocked Susan, Dr. Otterton and the bears off the helm, slamming the otters and bears between the railing and the heavy masses of water.

The wave also almost washed the most of the crew off from the deck to the stormy sea and the maelstrom, and so they would have done without their lifelines, which prevented them to be washed to the stormy sea.

Wilder was at the moment with Judy replacing his snapped lifeline to new one before the wave hitted the ship.

To the deck flooding masses of water took them both out of surprise as Wilder managed nick in time to get the lifeline tied up around of his waist and to the post of the main mast when the wave tossed them aside and dragged them violently along the ship and the rest of the crew underwater. During of which, Wilder managed to get tight hold around of Judy's waist before the violently flooding wave could separate the rabbit from him with it despite Judy's own lifeline.

The goings of the water flows in under water with the violent wave was head-confounding, shaking and tossing around.

During of this, Judy wasn't sure how long she was able to hold her breath under water due of being, as well as the entire crew, attached to the ship's mast, unable to wash away with the wave but also unabe to swim to the surface to catch some breath.

The rolling masses of water of the wave got Zoopaniola at the time of the collision to lean threateningly to starboard and so suddenly, which caused Mr. Bogo to lose his balance on the rigging and the First Mate Buffalo fell overboard from the mast to the swirling water of the maelstrom.

The strong flows dragged overboard Mr. Bogo with them towards the central hole of the maelstrom, until his got stuck in the rigging and tightened, preventing the flows from taking him with them to the central hole of the maelstrom.

Without thinking anything else, Mr. Bogo started to climb among the rope heading back to the ship.

However, the bright flash light revealed to him that the fox, Mr. Israel Grey, was discovered that Mr. Bogo had fell overboard and was at the moment hanging in the end of his lifeline for his life.

"Well, well, well... whatta sweet accident!" Israel Grey shouted to Bogo and revealed his dagger.

"Do say hello to the fishes… Mr. Bogo!" Grey said grinning evilly and sadistically.

Mr. Bogo gasped in shock after realizing that what Israel Grey was about to do.

Without hesitation, Israel Grey swung his dagger and cut the rope... sending Mr. Bogo fell back into the water... to at mercy of the maelstrom.

Mr. Bogo tried to call for help but no one heard his cries for help through of the rumbling storm and howling rogue wind.

And with the swirling tide of the maelstrom, Mr. Bogo sunk into the maelstorm's central hole and drowned there.

Eventually the rest of the ship returned back to the surface, thanks to the sealing the hatches and warehousing inside the ship so much air to prevent the ship from sinking under the waves.

Everybody on the deck, unaware of Bogo's cruesome demise in the paws of the sea, panted and coughed violently due of being so long under water and gasped deebly for the air after the deck was completely above of the surface.

Also soaking wet Wilder and Judy coughed along the crew the salt water ouf ot their mouth.

It was worse in Judy's case.

The bunny breathed fast and in a panic while coughing strongly the water out of her mouth and even vomited both salt water and melted food (carrots) to the deck.

Seemingly being too long under the heavy masses of violently tossing and shaking water was not seemingly good for the bunnies. Especially for those ones who are unused to the hard seafaring.

"Carrots, Carrots! Easy, easy! Take it easy! Calm down! Don't panic! Breathe deeply and calmly and again. Deeply and calmly." Wilder said trying to calm down almost panicked Judy due of the lack of oxygen, before the bunny vomited a second batch of salt water out of her mouth.

"That's better, good bunny." Wilder said while patting gently the coughing bunny's back.

However, the crew did not had much time to catch some breath for long, due a new wave which rolled off the edge down to the maelstrom and stormed straight for Zoopaniola.

"Captain! The last wave! Here it comes!" Otterton shounted, unsure about that will the plan work.

"HOLD ON TO YOUR LIFELINES, GENTS! IT'S GONNA BE A BUMPY RIDE!" Susan shouted, strangely excited, even though it seemed extremely likely that they were all about to die.

As the rolling wave hit Zoopaniola's side, it pushed with the brutal force of the sea the ship further inside of the borders of the faster swirling flows of the maelstrom and dangerously close to maelstrom's central hole.

Captain Flint also tied his own lifeline around his own waist and the another end of the rope to a post to the mast before the monkey grabbed from his master's leg.

Wilder pulled Judy over to a mast and pressed her against it, wrapping his arms around of her body and shielded the rabbit with his own body."

"Don't think about death, Carrots! We'll survive from this! We will!" Wilder encouraged Judy, even though even he had his own worries about their situation.

Thanks to Judy's a delicate sense of hearing, she heard very well the still-growing rumbling of the maelstrom's central hole as if it were a roaring Kraken's mouth ready to swallow up the whole of the ship at once.

Judy of course didn't wanted to show openly herself of being afraid of what would happen to them, but she knew well that everyone is physically and mentally powerless in the face the forces of nature, especially those ones which are deadly like this maelstrom.

Judy squeezed her eyes shut, one tear dropping from her eye to her cheek, as darkness of maelstrom enveloped them.

Suddenly, Zoopaniola's released and nick in time tightened sails catched Maelstrom's center's strong air flows, which rocketed the ship fast forward, causing every crew member to lose their balance and toss them everywhere on the deck.

The ship also got a little help from the mix of the faster swirling flows of water and another down to the maelstrom rolling huge wave, which together carried the ship away from the central hole of maelstrom.

With the help of the giant wave's strong push and the faster swirling water, the storm winds in Zoopaniola's sails were strong enough to push Zoopaniola completely out from the maelstrom.

After the ship was safety and the hurricane was either fading or passing and calming down, the entire crew started with enthusiasm and relief cheer their narrow survival from the certain death in the front of Captain Susan, who watched the crew with the proud smile on her face before she left from the helm.

Wilder then relaxed his tight hold from the mast and opened his own eyes looking around of him, seeing once again calm and dark-blue starr filled night sky upon of them and the hurricane was left far behind.

The wide smile came to his lips and Wilder then looked at Judy, Judy was curled up under of his jacket against the mast holding from it tightly, seemingly due of loosing her hope when they were nearly swallowed by the maelstrom.

"Hey, Carrots. You can open your eyes now. The hurricane is gone behind of us. We made it." Wilder said encouragely.

Judy slowly and carefully opened her eyes, and after seeing the bright star-filled night sky, she relaxed in relief.

"We made it." Judy whispered in disbelief.

Judy started then to palpate her faces and her body with her paws to make sure she still felt herself alive, until her ears jumped up and the worried and disbelieving expression on her face turned into wide and excited smile.

And hen, her relief turned into loud cheering with the crew.

"We made it. We made it! Hahahahaa! WILDER WE MADE IT!" Judy shouted, grabbed surprisingly from Wilder's paws and started eagerly jumping the circle around of her.

Also Captain Flint let go of Wilder's leg, and with the deep sigh of relief, from the exciting and dangerous experience exhausted monkey then fell on its stomach to the deck.

On the bridge, Leodore showed up from the barrel now when the storm was over and turned to captain Susan who walked past.

"Captain! That...oh, my goodness. That was... that was absolutely... that was the most..." Leodore sputtered, trying to find the right words to congratulate the captain otter, but Susan quickly but calmly silenced him.

"Oh, tish-tosh, governor. Actually, Dr. Otterton was the one who truly saved the day with his most helpful knowledge about the behaviors of the tides of the storm." Susan said calmly.

Leodore could not believe what Susan had just said... that a doctor, who was even an otter who has no experience of the seafare, saved the day.

Leodore only shrugged.

"Well, never mind. At least, the most important thing is that my ship is still in safe and sound. Maybe not quite in one piece but safe nonetheless. Thanks to the courage of the crew! All of them! Everyone on board!" Leodore proudly declared.

"Well, not quite everyone on board, governor. Someone cowardly landlubber was hiding inside the barrel during the entire storm." Otterton reminded Leodore with the mocking tone, much to the lion's annoyance, before he rushed to Susan's side, leaving from his comment angered and angrily growling Leodore behind.

Susan then turned to Otter.

"Thank you, Otterton dear. Without you, all of us would have expected a watery grave at the bottom of the sea." Susan said complimenting Dr. Otterton for his advices, which saved the ship and the crew from certain doom.

Otterton felt a little bit embarrassed after having such of praise from the Captain, who was his childhood friend. He himself couldn't believe that his warnings about the stormy air and sea's unpredictable movements were suddenly changed helpful advices for their narrow survival from the deadly maelstrom.

Susan then gently gave a light kiss to Otterton's cheek before walking down the stairs to confronted the crew.

From the kiss shocked Otterton then instantly blushed but only just briefly, before he snapped out of it and followed Susan.

Susan then confronted the cheering crew and turned then to Wilder and Judy.

"Well, l must congratulate you, Mr. Wilder. lt seems your cabin bunny did a bang-up job with those lifelines." Susan said proudly.

Wilder and Judy nudged each other to shoulders playfully and heartily laughing.

"She truly has grown to the good sailor, Cap'n. Without her, I wouldn't be standing here right now. She saved my life." Wilder said proudly and thankfully looking at Judy, who looked happily back.

Happy ending for Judy's very first and extremely dangerous test, from what she was very proud of herself.

Even for once, Judy happily felt herself to be more useful to herself and the others.

Then Susan turned to the crew.

"All hands accounted for, Mr. Bogo?" Susan asked, looking for Mr. Bogo.

Suddenly, the awkward silence fell upon the deck.

There was no any response from Mr. Bogo.

Every crew member on the deck started to look around to search the First Mate buffalo with their eyes, but Mr. Bogo did not seem to be even at presence.

Judy's smile turned then a slight of worry and she tried also herself to locate the first mate in question with her eyes.

"Mr. bogo?" Susan repeated, but there was no response.

Suddenly, Mr. Israel Grey walked humbly through of the crew members, who moved out of his way, and stepped forward before of Susan with the sorrowful look on his scarred face and his ears were lowered by mourning

The fox was holding something in his paws and after realizing that what it was, Judy gasped in shock.

It was Mr. Bogo's hat.

 _What has happened?_ Judy asked in shock and confusion in her mind as she followed Mr. Israel Grey as he stopped before of Susan.

"I'm so sorry captain…" Israel Grey started with the mourning-like tone. "But I'm afraid... that Mr. Bogo has been lost." Grey finished humbly handing Mr. Bogo's hat to Susan's paws.

Susan took the hat into her paws, staring it with the horror and disbelief on her face.

"What happened to him?" Susan asked sorrowfully and disbelieving what she just heard.

"His lifeline was not secured." Grey added, looking over at Judy accusingly.

Every crew member at presence turned to glare at Judy with the accusing look on their eyes, knowing that the Captain had put her in charge of securing the lifelines during the storm.

Judy gasped in shock as the deeply shocked bu also frightened expression appeared on her face after what she just heard. She could not believe it. She tightened the every last one lifeline during the storm!

With the eyes widened in shock and anguish, Judy turned to look at Susan, hoping she wouldn't believe Grey's words, but Susan only gave him a disappointed glare.

"No, no! That's not true! I checked them all!" Judy protested in anguish and rushed towards the mast to where all lifelines were attached, pushing in disbelief and a bit in panic some crew members out of his way to check a lifelines again.

But when she reached to them, much to her shock, one of the lifeline was missing.

"N-no, I-I did! I-I checked them ALL. T-they were secure. I swear. Please, you have to believe me." Judy said turning back to Susan, desperately begging the captain to believe her.

But, however, Susan only glared at her with an angry yet disappointed look, which caused Judy to slowly lower her head down.

Judy's expression turned slowly into anguished and sorrowfully ashamed and her ears dropped down behind of her head. Even her eyes were slowly get watery.

Wilder, along with Dr. Otterton from the bridge, looked at Judy feeling deeply sorry for the ashamed bunny, until he turned his attention to Grey, asking from himself in his mind that how did he knew that this happened.

But much to his surprise and disgust, he noticed Israel Grey secretly glaring at him as the scar-faced fox gave to him nearly undetected evilly proud grin on his lips.

Wilder's faces hardened as he glared back at him, not only realizing that Judy in fact was completely innocent to Mr. Bogo's demise but also that Israel Grey was the real one who actually did it and had framed the innocent bunny for his own actons.

"We're gonna speak about this… later!" Wilder growled coldly bu in a low voice.

"Hmph! I knew that that little brat is nothing more than a nuisance. She just proved that she'll never be anything else, just a useless and untrustworthy walking disaster." Leodore growled mockingly, before he pointed his blaming finger at her and raised his voice.

"Are you happy now, little brat?! Your ineptitude cost now the life of one of us! If I were the captain in here, I would throw you overboard! At least thus we could get rid of your stupid tricks" Leodore angrily scolded before he returned to his cabin.

The other crew turned to Susan, who looked down at Mr. Bogo's hat before having mourning speech.

"Mr. Bogo was a..." Susan said with the sad tone before she paused to clear her throat, "fine sailor; finer than most of us... could ever hope to be."

Otterton looked down from the bridge, the mourning expression on his face.

"But he knew the risks, as do we all. Resume your posts. We carry on." Susan finished her speech to the crew and departed, heading back to her stateroom, most likely to mourn the loss of a good friend in private.

The rest of the crew members returned to their posts, while some of them still glared accusingly at Judy.

In the middle of all of that, Judy, still ashamed of her "failure" and with a look of pure devastation on her face, ran away to find some place, where she would be alone for while.

Wilder looked after her in sadness. Not for Mr. Bogo's demise but rather for feeling sorry for Judy, knowing that she's an innocent. He truly wished inside of him that he would have to stand for her by somehow. Now he deeply repented that he did not do anything to defend her.

However, Wilder decided to let Judy have some time alone for herself, before he could speak with her personally.

* * *

Later on that night...

After the narrow survival from the storm, the repaired Zoopaniola was once again sailing through of the deep, bright and calm night without any further setbacks. Wilder was at the moment on the deck in the watch while the rest of the crew were asleep under the deck.

Wilder eventually spotted Judy sitting in the bow mast's shrouds curling a piece of rope in her paws. Her ears were still lowered down against the back of her head and she looked with the mix of angered and ashamed look on her eyes at the bright and star-filled dark-blue sky and the sea.

Wilder decided that Judy had been given enough time to herself and he went to her, leaning to the railings next of the shrouds, looking up at Judy, who didn't react his arrival on the scene nor even his presence in any way.

Judy did not even turn her eyes at him.

Wilder was briefly silent before she started to spoke.

"It weren't your fault, you know." He eventually said breaking the silence between of them.

Judy only sighed in frustration and looked out into the stars.

"Think about it, Carrots. You did well. One little mistake is not the End of the World. Besides, half the crew would be at the moment in the watery grave out there, if you weren't…" He started, but then Judy snapped out, threw angrily the rope overboard and jumped down from the shrouds front of Wilder.

"I DID WELL?! ONE LITTLE MISTAKE?! DON'T YOU GET IT, YOU DUMB FOX?!" Judy shouted the angry expression on her face and jumped from the railing to the deck to confront Wilder, who looked at the bunny with the surprised look.

"I SCREWED UP! I TOTALLY SCREWED UP! FOR THE TWO SECONDS, I THOUGH THAT MAYBE I COULD DO SOMETHING RIGHT, BUT... BUT... AARGH!" Judy cried furiously, before she turned her back to Wilder and stormed off.

"I JUST... I-I JUST... TRIED TO... E-EVEN FOR ONCE... I-I DIDIN'T MEANT TO... I...!"

Judy then leaned against the bow mast and sighed, running her fingers through her head's fur.

"Maybe Leodore was right... he was right all of time about me. I'm nothing! I can't do anything right! I'm just the walking disaster and doomed to be the walking diaster! I'll never be good for anything, no matter how much I try, I always screw up! And now Mr. Bogo is goner because of me!" Judy added with the heavily dispirited tone.

"I Just-forget it! Forget it! I don't want to talk about it anymore! I don't even want you around here! Go away and leave me alone!" Judy said and her ears dropped down again and her head was hanging on her shoulders while was struggling against the inner pain and feeling of guilty she felt inside of herself.

Wilder knew or guessed why Judy was angry and felt for it deeply sympathy and sorry for the bunny.

He had seen Judy as the grave silent, depressed and unsociable bunny before, especially in the nighttime. Every night he, while being on the watch, Wilder had spotted Judy who had withdrawn to the lonely place on Zoopaniola's deck or even the masts with her own privacy thoughts.

And yet today he had seen Judy as more joyful, life-embracing, social (at least with him and Captain Flint during their "wave-ride,") eager, hard-working and brisk bunny than at the beginning of the voyage, but also brave, selfless, loyal and spunky as she showed during the violent hurricane.

But right now...

The poor bunny seemed to be mentally and emotionally broken and defeated.

And probably with her spirit and heart filled with a guilt, remorse and self-barking.

Eventually, Wilder walked behind of her and reached his paw towards Judy, landing it gently on her right shoulder before grabbing to it and gently turning her to him so she could look at her.

However, she did not raised her heard neither her eyes at him, not at least much.

Wilder saw from the bunny's face that Judy was deeply and a tenfold ashamed for her "failure" back in the hurricane, as she reluctantly turned to him. Judging of her emotionally distressed expression on her face, tears were forming in her large purple eyes wet of the tears of the deep shame.

"Now, you listen to me, Judy Hawkins." Wilder said.

"I was once as mentally and emotionally broken and defeated as you right now, due of being treated everyday inmammalely by the other animals, because of me being the fox and the others bullshit belief of us foxes being the most cunning and deceitful of all animals. And it continued so long until I finally learned something to get through of all of that bullshit." Wilder started.

"Never let 'em see that they get to you." Wilder Said.

"It's the code which has helped me to survive through of the harsh and unfair life of the fox. And now, I'm going to teach to you the same code to follow from now on!" Wilder explained supportively.

"How it is supposed to help me?" Judy asked tearfully and with sobbing tone, still refusing to look at Wilder's eyes in the shame and sorrow.

"Because despite the fact that you are a bunny and whatever the others says in advance about you, you're also the most special bunny I've ever seen in my life, Carrots. You're sharp like the knife, energetic, strong-willed, fearless and spunky as any other a lot experienced sailor. I didn't even saw any sign of fear in you during that harsh hurricane we faced unlike what I initially thought." Wilder explained.

"You see, Carrots? You've got the makings of greatness in you..."

Wilder's supporting words got Judy slowly and still reluctantly in shame to rise her head a little bit and she turned her head to look at Wilder's green eyes with her own tearful eyes.

"...but some day you gotta take the helm and chart your own course! Stick to it! stick to your goals in life which waiting for you beyond of your bow, no matter the squalls or setbacks. And most importantly, never let the one failure to break your adventurous spirit like that ever again. And when the time comes, you'll get the chance to really test the cut of your sails and show all the doubters from what the bunny like you is truly made of!"

Wilder then turned from Judy to the star-filled night sky.

"And... well, I hope I'm there with you, catching some of the light coming off you that day."

Wilder then gave the gentle and symphatic look at Judy, who was cleary moved by Wilder's comforting speech, despite still sobbing in shame.

After looking each others in the eyes for a moment, Judy leaned forward and rested her head on Wilder's belly, bursting into tears.

Wilder was at first confused about this move checking quickly around that there wasn't anybody to see this. Unsure what to do at first, Wilder considered pushing Judy off him but quickly changed his mind, melted his heart and patted her shoulders.

"Oh, you bunnies. You're so emotional." Wilder said as he wrapped his arms around of silently sobbing rabbit's body.

"There, there, It's alright, Carrots. It's alright." Wilder said, loosely hugging the sobbbing bunny to comfort her.

After the brief silence, Wilder cleared his throat and pulled himself away from Judy.

"Now, uh... Carrots, I… I best be getting back to my watch and you best be getting some shut-eye. It has been a long and hard day and so is gonna be also tomorrow's, and I believe that you need some rest to gather your strength for whatever tomorrow will bring." Wilder said and gently pushed Judy towards the stairs to the under deck the crew's cabin, where the crew was already sleeping.

Judy was about to go down the stairs, but she briefly stopped and turned back to Wilder, giving at him the sweet bunny smile, getting from Wilder the shy smile as an respond, before she turned and continued going down the stairs.

Wilder looked after her so long until Judy had completely disappeared under decks while the Captain Flint appeared on his shoulder.

And when she was gone from sight, Wilder felt something weird in his chest.

"Getting in too deep here, Flint. Next thing ya know, they'll be saying I've gone soft." Wilder said to his monkey.

Flint nuzzled his head against Wilder's, who laughed at his pet.

Then, rubbing his neck, Wilder returned to his watching post.

However, neither of him or Judy didn't suspected that they've been watched with the pair of menacing golden eyes up from the sails.

It was Mr. Israel Grey, who had spied a moment between Wilder and Judy all of time from the cover of the sails and shrouds, without being detected.

"Quite soft, indeed." The evil fox whispered smiling maliciously.

* * *

 **I hope that you all enjoyed this chapter.**  
 **R.I.P Mr. Bogo**  
 **See ya soon when the next chapter is out.**

 **But if you want the ENDLESS MAELSTROM to be related a little bit closer of Treasure Planet's black hole scene, please leave the review YES or NOT and I'll then make such of alternate version of ENDLESS MAELSTROM, if the waterspouts and violent hurricane, in your opinion, do not fit into this.**


	6. Chapter 6: Mutiny

**Hello again.  
Sixth chapter of TREASURE TROPOLIS is now completed and out.**  
 **I hope that you enjoy this chapter**

* * *

The night went quite peacefully.

At morning, after the sunrise, Judy was still sleeping in her own tiny hammock near the corner of the crew's cabin.

Normally, just like during the last months of the journey, Wilder would have already come to wake her up for the new lesson or the work of day, but this time he didn't. Probably he gave to Judy some free time to recover from the exhausting storm and her "failure."

There was also some crew members still sleeping with her all around of the crew's cabin, even thiugh most of the hammocks were empty and only few crew member was still under the slumber.

Raccoon brothers, one of which sucked his thump while slumbering, woodchuck and badger slept in the hammocks made by their size. Their hammocks were set to hang near of the crew's cabin's roof and some bigger sailors, like rhinoceros, hippo and polar bear sailors, plus one zebra and horse sailors who were sleeping in the another corner, were sleeping in the hammocks which were set to hang close the cabin's floor.

One of the sailors, no one else than the same warthog, slept in the hammock which was set right above of Judy's own.

The warthog smelled disgusting by sweat which brought to Judy some troubles to sleep, caunting in the crew's loud snoring and muttering, which was disturbing to the bunny with the very sensitive sense of hearing.

To lower it, Judy had tried to tie her ears into knot around of her head to prevent herself from hearing such of snoring but with poor results and discomfort.

But when the warthog even farted, right on front of her faces…!

"UGH!" Judy sleepy but loudly muttered in deep disgust before she fell roughly down to the floor from her hammock.

Warthog's fart front of her face, and nose, wasn't a pleasant morning wake-up for her and she definitely did not wanted to sleep anymore near of that disgusting sailor.

Sleepily Judy rubbed her sleepy eyes and slowly took from under of her brown shirt the golden locket her mother gave to her before she left from home. She opened it and looked the pic of her 7-years old self and her mother together inside of the locket smiling sweetly.

She missed her mother deep in her heart and hoped that her mother would see her not only as her daughter but also completely different person than she was before she left from home.

Judy was about to put the locket back under of her shirt, until Captain Flint suddenly and unexpectedly grabbed it from her paws and hid himself among the cargo in the another corner of the cabin.

"Flint?" Judy grumbled, rubbing her paw across of her sleepy faces trying to wipe the sleepiness away.

Well, it was much more easily said than doe, because Judy had been up more than half the night because of the hurricane. Due of that, she was still exhausted and not ready to get out of bed yet.

Judy slowly stood up on her feet and crawled towards the cargo after the monkey, even though her walk was slow and staggering due of exhaustion.

Judy then half-collapsed over the cargo, trying to reach with her paw to Flint, even though she was still too tired to even try to find the monkey.

"Flint, knock it off. It's too early for this." Judy muttered, until Flint sneaked behind of her and delivered the hard kick on her butt.

"OW! HEY FLINT!" Judy yelled, now wide awake.

Laughing mischievously, Flint stuck his tongue out at her and started to run away from her, holding Judy's locket in his hand.

Seeing this and willingly to get her locket back from the monkey, Judy started to chase the monkey all around of the crew's cabin.

"Hey come back here! Give my locket back you little hairy thief!" Judy shouted playfully at Flint as she tried to catch the monkey

"Give my medallion back you little hairy thief, thief, thief thief!" The monkey imitated Judy's words before Flint fled from the cabin to the deck Judy right behind of him.

With none yet on the deck, except few of Leodore's guardians, Judy chased monkey all over the deck, but was quite unable to catch or even corner the monkey in the corner due of it being very smart and having always some idea to get away from Judy's fingers.

But in order to keep chase even partially fair, Flint did not climbed to the masts but only jumped from the shrouds to shrouds and flied on the rope over the main deck far away from Judy's reach, much to Judy's annoyance, even thiugh she tried to reach to Flint's legs and tail with her high leaps.

But always when the monkey drobbed from the rope and landed on the deck, Judy, as the fast-legged bunny, was immediately right on his heels.

In the bow deck, the monkey once again escaped from the corner to which Judy managed to drove him and the monkey was about to get away again, until Judy quickly went after him and leaped from above of the bow deck's stairs towards on the main deck escaping monkey and managed to catch and pin Flint down.

"Gotcha, Flint!" Judy shouted. However, Flint quickly managed to escape from her grip and jumped through the gratings leading to the galley.

But this time, Judy didn't care anymore if Flint got away and she simply let the monkey go. Why to go after monkey after she already managed to get something of hers from the monkey's grip... her locket back.

Panting lightly from the case, Judy stood up on her kneels and tied the locket around of her neck again before she sighed in the relief.

Suddenly, Flint returned to her through the gratings, the bag full of water in his hands.

Judy managed already to guess what that sneaky monkey was about to do with the bag.

"Oh no. Oh no, you don't!"

Flint raised the bag's mouth on his lips and poured all the water into his mouth and then, he threw the bag aside and stared at Judy's eyes.

And without a warning, the monkey squirted all the water from its mouth to Judy's face and laughed at her mischievously.

Judy had enough of this.

"That's it you little furry buggers!" Judy shouted in annoyance, even though she giggled a bit and wiped the water off from her face.

Using this at his advantage, Flint escaped through the grates inside of the galley ´nick in time before Judy was able to wrap her fingers around of the monkey's tail.

"You little furry buggers, buggers, buggers, buggers!" The monkey teasingly imitated her words again as the monkey's head popped up from one of the gratings before disappearing again inside.

Flint kept popping up between the gratings... from one hole to another hole... while mocking Judy by repeating with the annoying tone of voice that "buggers" word at her.

Judy tried to catch the monkey with her paws until she tried even to knock the monkey in the head with the empty water bag, but failed... attempt by attempt.

Eventually, Flint stopped popping up between the gratings and making that annoying mocking voice and vanished into the galley.

When everything went into silence, Judy stopped beating the gratings with the bag and bowed down to check a bit better inside of the galley.

Following her sharp sense of hearing, Judy sneaked as quietly as she could into the empty galley.

Judy looked around, trying to find a spot where that sneaky monkey could be hiding, until she decides to use her sensitive sense of hearing.

After catching some tiny sounds, which sounded like someone was moving something to keep moving, Judy followed them quietly and looking briefly from everywhere for the certain monkey, until she ended up to the large and half-empty apple barrel.

Judy peeped inside of the barrel, seeing nothing than appels.

But she could say that she saw the tiny movement among the apples, but instead of lunging inside of the barrel, Judy decides to use something else to lure the mobkey to reveal itself.

"Fliiiint? I got some bananas for you, boy." Judy said, trying to her best to imitate Wilder's own voice to trick Flint to come out where ever he was hiding.

It worked, too well.

Bananas were the captain Flint's greatest weakness as he immediately jumped out from beneath of the apples after Judy mentioned the word "bananas."

After Flint came out from the barrel, the monkey realized that Judy had sneakily hustled him and jumped back inside of the barrel, trying to dig back under the apples.

"Hah! Busted!" Judy laughed as she jumped into the barrel herself.

Flint had no way to escape from her now. Judy had managed to cut all his escape ways and the bunny quickly wrapped her arms around of monkey, preventing him to escape from the barrel and started playfully tickle the monkey.

Suddenly, Judy's ears catched some steps in the stairs of the galley. Someone was coming in the galley and when they did they started to whisper to each others something.

Judy quickly shuted Captain Flint's mouth with her paw and peeped out through the barrel's hole to see what was going on ou there.

Judy saw right front of the barrel some crew members in the galley, especially the silverback gorilla, grizzly bear, wild boar, Finnick, female cheetah and one black wooled ram.

There was probably more than just those six crew members, but they were outside of the eyesight of hers which the barrel's hole allowed her to see.

The one big question filled Judy's mind... What was going on here?

"Look, boss. All I'm saying is, we're sick of all this waiting!" Growled the female cheetah.

"There's now one less of them." The boar sailor said.

"They still don't suspect a thing, so what are we still waiting for?" Finnick snarled.

"We should strike them now while we still have the element of surprise." Growled the gorilla sailor.

"Hands is right, boss! We have an advantage of surprise against them. We are wanting to move now!" Grizzly shouted impatiently.

Eventually and to Judy completely unexpectedly, Wilder appeared to inside of Judy's eyesight, scolding his impatient men.

"How many times do I have to tell you, pea-brains?! Patient! We don't move until they've taken us to the island and a treasure!" Wilder said angrily but trying to keep his voice calm and lower due of the some soldiers on the deck.

Judy was shocked after discovering the true meaning of this.

Judy then realized that Zoopaniola's entire crew Otterton had hired back in the home before the entire voyage, except all those ones who were loyal only to Susan, were all in fact the pirates and they have been plotting all this time from the beginning of taking over Zoopaniola after the Treasure Tropolis and its treasure were found. And even Wilder was among of them and even as their pirate leader and even the mastermind of this plotted mutiny.

And after the treasure's discovery, they would probably slaughter all of those ones who are outside of their group or would not join them; the captain Susan, the governor Leodore, the loyal crewmembers and the soldiers, Dr. Otterton and also her herself.

Suddenly, Mr. Israel Grey appeared too inside of Judy's eyesight, holding the knifes in his paws and grinning evilly.

"I say we're gonna cut their throats... from all of them!" Israel Grey said with sadistic grin on his face.

Suddenly, Wilder crabbed from Grey's snout and pulled him roughly down on his head's level.

Even though the half-ramp fox like Wilder was a bit smaller than Israel Grey himself, he had still enough of physical strength to keep the bigger and probably even stronger fox physically under control.

Israel Grey struggled to get out of Wilder's grip as he squeezed his fingers painfully around of his snout, making him to let out the light yelps out of pain.

"And I say that we do not gonna kill anybody unless I say so, you pea-brained twit!"

Wilder then released Israel Grey from his grip around of his snout, only to wrap his fingers around of his throat into the squeezing grip and lifted him up from the floor high in the air, looking up at his eyes with his own death-glare and his teeth bared into the deep growl of anger and feeling of disobeyed for that.

"This is my very last warning to you, you deaf-eared lunatic. Very last warning! Disobey my orders again like that trick you sent Mr. Bogo to his watery grave back in the hurricane…"

Judy gasped quietly in shock, realizing from Wilder's words that Mr. Bogo's death back in the maelstrom wasn't her fault, after all.

But the real guilty of murder was Israel Grey. Judy felt a bit anger inside of her after realization that that scar-faced fox had murdered Mr. Bogo without anyone noticing and even ruthlessly framed her as responsible of First Mate's unfortunate demise during the storm without attracting any doubts targeted at him.

"…and so help me, you'll be JOINING HIM!" Wilder shouted angrily and threw violently Israel Grey at the barrels."

As Israel Grey flied and collided against the barrels, the collision shook the barrel, in which Judy was hiding from the pirates, so harshly that it tossed her against the another side of the barrel inside of it, which nearly got the barrel to tip over.

The power of the collision also got Judy to unintentionally pull her paw off from around of Flint's mouth, but after realizing this in shock and in the fear of being discovered, Judy hastily wrapped her left arm around the monkey and covered Flint's mouth again with her right paw to prevent the monkey from letting out any single sound which could lead her to be discovered by the pirates.

Enraged Grey jumped back on his feet taking support from the barrel in which Judy was in, glaring at Wilder with his murderous glare.

"Strong talk from you, Wilder, but I know otherwise."

Israel Grey reached his clawed paw into the barrel to pick one apple. However, his paw and sharp claws reached to the level of Judy's head, ending up to dangerously close to her terrified faces.

Judy, looking at Grey's paw and its long sharp claws with the widened eyes by the horror as they tried to reach the apples but where only grabbing the empty air. Thinking quickly to avoid to be discovered, Judy picked one of the apples from the bottom of the barrel and quickly passed it into Grey's claws before the fox could look into the barrel to search for one apple.

"You got something to say, Grey?" Wilder asked.

Israel Grey chuckled devilishly

"But of course, Wilder. It's that little bunny girl!" Grey loudly whispered with the sinister smile as he pulled the apple out from the barrel.

Wilder looked at Israel Grey in hidden-shock and unnerved.

"Methinks you have a soft... spot for her. It would be the pleasure for me to see how you would react if I dug with a spoon one of her pretty purple eyes out of her head." Grey said with the sadistic tone to Wilder while twiddling the apple in his fingers before he ruthlessly dug his claws into it, draining the juice of the fruit out of the apple's holes.

Soon, Wilder found himself in middle of the big trouble as all his own men in the presence, inspired by Grey's words about Wilder's "weak Spot," turned their eyes at him with doubtful expression on his face.

There was the silence in the galley, except the crew members murmuring in agreement.

Eventually, Wilder regained his composure and hardened his voice and expression on his face.

"Now mark me…" He said deeply and quite darkly, before he suddenly draw out his dagger. Before anyone in the presence had time to react, Wilder turned around and stabbed with the dagger fatally in between of the black wooled ram sailor's eyes, killing him instantly… much to hiding Judy's and other crew members shock.

As the dead ram sailor's bloody body fell to the floor, Wilder threw the dagger stuck to the floor right on the feets of his men, startling them badly and making them hastily to back off.

"All of you, you pea-brained idiots! I care about one thing, and one thing only in my entire life... FLINT' TROVE! And now, when it is finally within reach of my paws after the years of searching, I'm not gonna let anyone to stand in my way, even if I have to slit the throats from the hundred animals and let them and let them choke on their own blood. And know that that a dumb bunny is not exception!" Wilder claimed.

The crew members gasped, nearly in shock at Wilder's newfound lust for blood."

"You really think that I'd risk all those riches I've been searched all my life for the sake of some... some pathetic nose-wiping little brat?!"

After hearing this, Judy started to slowly feel felt inside of her like she had just been ruthlessly stabbed in the back by the one she trusted and even called her best friend most of the voyage.

Judy's faces had dropped and her nearly tearful eyes had widened, both deeply shocked and emotionally hurt. Thinking that was the entire friendship and mutual respect between of her and Wilder all this time nothing else but only cheating and pretending.

However, Israel Grey, unlike the others and Judy in the barrel, wasn't shocked of the brutal death of one of their own... less impressed of what Wilder had just said.

"What was it now?" Israel Grey said before starting to taunt Wilder about what he had said to Judy in the last night.

"Oh, how sweet… You're sharp like the knife, energetic, strong-willed, fearless and spunky as any other a lot experienced sailor. They're the makings of greatness in you." Israel Grey said with the taunting tone, imitating mockingly Wilder's words he said to Judy the last night.

"You treat that bunny brat as if she were your own daughter, Wilder, so sweet from the one "softy" fox daddy." Israel Grey said mockingly.

"SHUT YOUR YAP!" Wilder yelled in anger with the savage-looking expression.

However, he soon calmed himself and waved his paw forward toward Israel Grey as the sign of "Knock it off, I was just kidding." thing.

"Oh, c'mon, Grey. I just cozied up to that dumb little bunny to keep her off our scent. But I ain't gone soft!" Wilder said with dark tone.

Suddenly…

"LAND HO!" Weaselton suddenly called from the mast.

The whole gang of crew members excitedly began to cheer after they heard that before every last one of them rushed out from the galley to the deck.

Judy was still sitting in the barrel, in deep shock and sorrow after hearing all what Wilder had just said about her.

She released Flint from her paws after the pirates left from the galley and stayed herself behind inside the barrel to trying to swallow all what she had heard. Flint rushed out from the barrel and the galley to the deck after his master.

"Ha ha ha! There it is! Feast your eyes with this sight if you ain't dropped them already from your heads!" Duke excitedly shouted in the crown's nest.

Every now-revealed pirate rushed from under deck to Zoopaniola's starboard side's railing to take the look to the sight which Duke already saw from the crown's nest and Wilder himself pushed his way through of the spotted hyena and crocodile pirates to finally saw it by himself, much to duo's annoyance.

The crew started to cheer again after they saw it. They made it! They've reached to the TREASURE TROPOLIS, which hidden inside of its lands THE LOOT OF THE SEVEN SEAS.

The island was quite large and most of it from the beaches to further of the island was covered by a huge and dense palm tree jungle, in middle of which was a few of the open hilly areas. In the middle of the island also stood a small mountain-like rock, which rose to the heights above of the island's trees. From its peak rose lightly a funnel-shaped column of smoke, telling that there was either someone burning campfire or then the rock was a small dormant volcano.

However, the crew didn't even cared of it.

On the island's beach seemed to be in a sheltered lagoon shaped by nature, which was surrounded by the sandbacks peeking out of the water.

It seemed to be perfect anchorage and the shelter for Zoopaniola against the possible storms.

The lagoon's water was pretty low but not so low that the ship was not able to fit barely through of its sandbanks and sail to inside of the lagoon.

Suddenly, whikle looking at the island, Wilder's excited expression on his face turned into pure confusion after he had reached his paw into his jacket's pocket but he didn't find what he was looking for.

"Where the devil's my telescope?" Wilder asked from himself.

* * *

Back in the galley.

Judy climbed slowly out from the barrel, still hurt and sad.

Tears were forming in the corners of her eyes, until Judy slowly wiped them off while leaning against the table on top of which was lying Wilder's telescope.

And then she snapped out of her shock and sorrow and realized that what she had to do now. Susan and Otterton... plus that sourpuss lion... and the rest of the crew were in grave danger if she do not get to captain's stateroom to warn them about the mutiny Wilder has plotted all of time before it's too late.

She headed towards the stairs, until her sensitive ears cathced some mutering voices, which told her that in the galley was some one else with her.

This caused alarmed bunny to turn around to see who was behind of her and at the same time Judy stretched out her left paw towards the wooden spoon left on the table, ready to grab it into her paws and fight back if it was one of Wilder's pirates who had stayed behind to get something to eat.

However, she recognized with her eyes the familiar moose, female snow leopard, squirrel, white wolf, gray-white-furred cougar and badger in front of her, looking for something to eat after they've realized that Wilder has not made breakfast for the crew.

And soon, Fabienne, Peter, Jack, White Fang, Claw and Baggy, all of them spotted Judy standing in the defense position right in the front of them.

Judy wasn't sure how to react. She wasn't even sure were these six part of Wilder's mutiny... even though they were mentioned as Susan's most trusted and loyal friends back in the home port before the beginning of the voyage.

"Hey cabin bunny, what's up?" Jack asked while chewing nuts and looking at Judy at the same time.

"How did you come in here? We didn't saw you in here or even heard you coming down the stairs."White Fang asked gently.

Judy didn't answered. She just stepped back a little bit staring all of them doubtfully.

These six noticed immediately her acting strangely.

"What's wrong, bunny? Why'd you look at us like that?" Fabienne asked gently but confused about Judy's behaviors.

Still uncertain about that to whom their loyalty belonged, Judy gathered a bit courage to ask it from them personally.

"You six are not part of Wilder's plotted mutiny, aren't you?" Judy asked shyly but keeping herself alerted.

All six sailors were immediately confused about this question.

"Mutiny? What mutiny? What are you talking about?" Peter asked confused.

"We're part of the crew and this voyage, but not part of what you call "mutiny." Or then you invented that all by yourself." Claw claimed quite rudely.

Judy didn't know what she was able to believe now. She struggled inside of her mind with the two options; that these six maybe were not, after all, part of Wilder's mutiny or then they tried to lie to her by claiming otherwise and acting just as if nothing had ever happened here. However, Judy of course didn't spotted from inside of the barrel and through of its hole anyone of these six among those crew members, who were here in the galley only five minutes ago. She neither had heard them from coming down the stairs into the galley after something to eat, so she pondered that they were either with Wilder's crew or then they came down the stairs at the same time when Wilder and his minions rushed to the deck.

Secondly, these six were not on the deck when Weaselton called ""Land ho" from the main mast's crown's nest and their expressions did not seemed to be excited like the most of the crew from Wilder's side. This perhaps could be a reasonable explanation for the fact that these six were not with Wilder.

Still, Judith remained alerted and unsure.

Fabienne started to get a bit worried of Judy due of her strange behaviors and her words about the mutiny, from which she did not have a clue.

"Cabin bunny, calm down and listen. We don't know anything about this... mutiny... from which you're talking about and we'll never mutiny against the fine captain who happens to be the old friend of ours. So tell us, what are you talking about?" Fabienne asked gently as she went next of Judy, kneeled down on her head's level and soothingly and gently grabbed from Judy's tiny paw with her own larger paw.

"Yeah, cabin bunny! You surely heard just a few minutes ago that that nice happy fox cook and some crew members secretly plotting of taking over Zoopaniola once we've arrived to the end of the boat trip and after discovering the treasure, right? Yeah right!?" Jack asked quite sarcastically and incredulously, unknowing of the fact that he had just guessed all of that correctly out of nowhere.

Because of this, Fabienne, White Fang and Baggy all turned towards the squirrel, letting out the deep growl, demanding him to shut his mouth and leave the bunny alone.

"Yes, just like that... and I heard everything... just a few minutes ago... from inside that barrel." Judy answered pointing with her finger at the apple barrel, much to Jack's surprise.

"W-wilder… and m-most of the crew… T-they… they have p-plotted... all this time... t-the mutiny a-against… against us... behind of... o-our backs." Judy said, still deebly hurt by Wilder's words about her.

Peter, Jack, Fabienne, Claw, Baggy and White Fang looked at each others still confused.

Now it was their turn to be uncertain of what they should believe.

Before Fabienne was able to say anything else, Judy quickly pulled her paw out of her gentle grip and turned around from her.

"I have to go to warn the captain about this!" Judy said and started running, heading towards the stairs to the deck.

Until all of a sudden, just when she reached the stairs and was about to climb them up, she ran into Wilder who had unexpectedly appeared above the stairs as he was coming back down the stair to pick up his telescope from the galley.

Both of them stopped in place as they noticed each others.

Judy looked up at Wilder, surprised that the fox just had managed to reach above of the stairs before she managed to get out, blocking her way just as she was in middle of the stairs.

Wilder looked down at Judy, a little surprised seeing her coming out from the galley with such of hasty expression on her face.

"Carrots? Wilder said with the surprised tone.

Wilder had not seen Judy in the galley or even seen her going down there before the secret meeting with the crew, which he had arranged quite early with the belief that Judy and most of the soldiers and the crew were still in sleep at that moment. So he started to grew suspicions that maybe Judy had somehow sneaked into the galley before the meeting and somehow overhear all the plans of the mutiny.

He then looked around of them at first, making sure that they were two alone, before he took a friendly grin on his face and started to come down the stairs, forcing Judy back in the galley.

As Wilder came down. He spotted Peter, Fabienne, Jack, White Fang, Baggy and Claw in the corner of the galley.

At least them Wilder had saw coming down the stairs to the galley as he and his men rushed out to the deck. But Wilder had not cared about them just like they did not cared about the discovery of the Treasure Tropolis. Only one thing they had wanted was the breakfast.

But now, Wilder grew more suspicions of the fact that if Judy had overhear the plans of the mutiny, she had presumably told all of them everything about it.

"What are you doing here so early, Carrots?" Wilder asked politely, trying to act as if nothing had happened.

"Playing games, are we?"

"Uh, yeah. Yeah, we're, kind of, playing games." Judy answered deeply and darkly, glaring at Wilder with the dark look as the fox backed her against a table.

Judy kept herself alert and ready as she tried to spot the way to escape from the galley to warn the others about Wilder's betrayal, before this ends up by the way as Wilder had coldly told his crew about the slitting throats.

Judy's dark glare at him and her dark toned respond confirmed Wilder's suspicious.

Wilder came to the conclusion that the bunny had heard way too much. So, he had to prevent her or anyone inside of the galley from warning the rest of the crew loyal to the captain, who were still unknowing about their mutiny.

"Oh, I see, I see. Well, you know, Carrots? Actually I've never liked the games. There are always two parties, neither of which just do not seem to play fairly. And even if they were playing a fair game... no one has been accustomed to lose." Wilder said.

During of this, Wilder secretly grabbed to his uploaded pistol, which he hid behind of his back.

Fabienne, Peter, White Fang, Claw, Jack and Baggy watched the situation from aside, bated breath about the what might happen next.

With her sensitive sense of hearing, Judy heard very well the small click behind of Wilder's back, suspecting that the fox had the pistol behind of his back. So, Judy quickly moved her right paw all around on the table behind of her back, trying to reach to something with which she would be able to defend herself.

Then she felt in her fingers touching and wrapping themselves around of the wooden spoon's wooden arm as she grabbed it into her right paw.

"Hmm... I AGREE, WILDER!" Judy shouted as she suddenly lunged towards Wilder

And then, taking advantage of Wilder being cripple fox, Judy hit him with the wooden spoon on his crutch and peg leg.

This came to Wilder so unexpectedly, that after Judy had struck his crutch off from under of his weight and walking with the peg leg brought a bit difficulties without support, Wilder immediately lost his balance and collapsed yelping to the floor of the galley.

"Come on!" Judy yelled at Fabienne, Peter, White Fang, Claw, Jack and Baggy, who quickly forget their breakfast and rushed after Judy up the stairs and out of the galley to the deck.

Groaning and growling in pain, Wilder slowly rose on his feet and limping slightly he climbed up the stairs to the deck.

"Come back here you little…!" Wilder bellowed after reaching to top of the stairs, with the furious and savage expression on his face.

Wilder looked furiously around, searching Judy with his eye from everywhere on the deck but he didn't find her.

Then he took the look to Zoopaniola's aft and spotted Judy, Fabienne, Peter, White Fang, Claw, Jack and Baggy, accompanied by five of Leodore's guards as they rushed hastily to the captain's stateroom and slammed the door behind, bolting it shut.

"Ohhblast it all! Accursed that little bunny!" Wilder growled, knowing that he had lost this round of this game and now most of the captain's crew knew their plans.

Wilder tried to get to his feet, but as soon as he fell of its own weight on his wooden leg, he yelped in pain as the wave of pain from Judy's hard strike, for the bunny, took over his cripple peg leg and he almost fell over the deck.

Wilder gritted teeth out of pain as he struggled hardly to regain his balance with his sore peg leg.

And after Wilder had barely regained his balance and ignoring the variable pain waves, he blowed loud whistle in the air, getting immediately his crew's attention.

"Change in plans, lads! No more cover-ups! No more tricks, nor mercy!" Wilder yelled as he drew his sword out.

"WE MOVE NOW!" Wilder loudly declared.

The entire crew then blowed into the air a loud roar-bark-bellow mixed cheering after hearing this.

This was what they've waited very long time since the beginning of the Voyage.

And without warning and armed with the sailor knives, the pirates immediately attacked all Leodore's soldiers on the deck, taking them by surprise. Though the guards tried to fight back with their muskets and swords, they were overwhelmed by two or three against one and they were roughly and with the brute force pinned down to the deck and with the brutal and savage ways they slit their throats or stabbed them to dead with their knives.

The zebra and horse sailors, who climbed yawning up from the crew's cabin, were also taken by surprise and the zebra sailor's throat was slit open from behind and the horse sailor was brutally strangled to death.

However, give of the soldiers, from the bow deck opened fire towards pirates with their pistols and muskets until Israel Grey landed from the shrouds behind of them and imperceptibly took two swords from two tiger guards.

Grey then unexpectedly and fatally stabbed them to their backs. The tigers roared in pain as they felt the burning pain inside of them. They looked down and saw the sword's bloody blades busting out from their chests, right on the places of their hearts. The blood flowed from the holes in their chest as Israel Grey pulled the swords out of them. The dying tigers then slowly fell on their kneels and then they completely fell over the deck.

One of the wolf guards reacted to their fellow tiger soldier's sudden roar in pain by turning around to see what was going on, but he was too late to react in anyway before Israel Grey then brutally slashed the throat open from him. The wolf let out a loud yelp out of pain as he felt the sharp blade slicing the flesh on this throat. Blood flew out of his sliced jugular under high pressure on Grey's faces as his dying bloody body fell over the deck.

Grey then threw away the swords and grabbed the pistols from the remaining wolf guard's paws and kicked him roughly against the bear guard's back, pushing them both roughly over the bow deck's railing to the main deck. Grey jumped after them and at first he placed the pistols barrels in the wolf guard's eyes and fired without hesistant or mercy, blowing his brain out, killing him instantly.

Grey then picked the bear guard's musked from the deck and started to brutally stab the soldier to death with the bear soldier's own musket's bayonet multiple times, grinning sadistically and bloodthirsty.

"Pistols and swords in paw, men! Strike our colors, Mr. Weaselton!" Wilder yelled pointing the weasel in the crown's nest with his sword.

"My pleasure, captain!" Weaselton responded back and cut the ropes which held the Zoogland's color in the top of the main mast.

Meanwhile, Mr. Hands the gorilla smashed down the doors of the Zoopaniola's armory and brought from there with him the swords, axes, pistols and muskets for the men, letting out into the air deep and loud roar as the crew members rushed to him to have the weapons.

After getting their weapons, pirates rushed towards the door of the captain's stateroom.

In middle of the deck, Wilder took the proud expression to his face as some of his men pulled their own flag to the top of the main mast… the pirates' fearsome black pirate flag with the ram skull and crossed bones… behind of his back.

* * *

In Susan's stateroom.

"Pirates on my ship?!" Susan yelled in shock and anger, after learning the truth... and also the true colors of Mr. Bogo's death from Judy after she had explained everything she heard back in the galley, with the help from Fabienne, Peter, White Fang, Claw, Jack and Baggy.

"Yes." Judy said.

"I've been so foolish to believe that fox all of time." Judy said, feeling guilty that she had ever believed to Wilder and his lies.

"You weren't only one who has been foolish, Mrs. Hawkins. I myself swallowed gullibly that shameless lie from that another blasted fox!" Susan said, kind of apologizing her own mistakes to believe Israel Grey's lies over of Judy's protests in self-defense last night.

"Well, l swear that I'll see every last one of those accursed pirates hanged in gallows." Susan exclaimed as she, standing on captain Mchorn's arm, opened the cabinet and pulling some pistols, which she had stored in her cabinet in case of situations like this, out and loading them.

"Otterton, Leodore, familiar with these?" Susan asked as she tossed two pistols to Otterton and Leodore.

"Well, I'm more of a supporter of peace as a docdor, Susan…" Dr. Otterton explained, holding the pistol with the look of disgust in his face.

"Bah! Doctors, they know nothing about the wielding and using the weapons and…" Leodore said mockingly, playing himself with the pisstol on his paw until he accidentally pulled the trigger and shot the bullet to the globe right next of cabinet and Susan, much to otter captain's shock that that lion nearly hit her with the gunshot.

"Well, heh! Maybe I neither…" Leodore said nervously, taking the innocent grin on his face, much to Susan's annoyance as she rolled her eyes.

"Were greatly outnumbered by two against one, so arm yourself so well that you are ready for anything, but also so that you will be able to move faster." Susaan said to the crew as she picked more weapons out of the cabinet and tossed them to the crew members.

As they were gathering and uploading all their weapons from Susan's cabinet, they suddenly heard that the stateroom's locked door was being hammered by muscular strength in order to get inside.

They had to get out of here and fast.

Susan then took the map from the chest and turned to Judy, who was still uploading two pistols for herself.

"Mrs. Hawkings, defend this with your life." Susan said and was about to hand over the map to Judy, until Captain Flint, who had followed Judy to the stateroom and asthe monkey who loved to tease the crew members by stealing the stuff from them, grabbed it unexpectedly out from Susan's paw.

"Flint! Give me that!" Judy yelled and quickly grabbed the map, taking it back from the monkey's hands.

"There's no time for playing you stupid monkey!" Judy scolded the monkey as he put the map into her pocket for safe keeping.

Meanwhile in the outside, the largest and strongest members of Wilder's crew tried together to ram the the stateroom's door down with the muscular strength while the rest of them awaited from aside the chance to storm into the stateroom the pistols uploaded and the swords drew out.

Suddenly, Wilder appeared behind of the crew members and tossed them out of his way.

"Oh, you're taking all day about it! Doesn't anyone of you pea-brains have intelligence to shoot the lock?!" Wilder yelled in frustration to his crew as he took from one of his crewmen the blunderbuss and shot with it the lock off from the door and the pirates rushed in.

But much to their surprise, captain's stateroom was empty.

As the pirates explored the stateroom, they soon discovered the large hole in the floor which led top the cargo hold, telling them that opponent side had escaped that way out of the reach of their paws.

"After them! Stop them!" Wilder barked and kicked the nearby cape dog pirate into the hole.

* * *

As the pirates stormed inside of Susan's stateroom and some of them jumped through the floor hole into the cargo hold after the opposite crew...

Judy, Otterton, Leodore, Mchorn and their loyal sailors and the soldiers led by Susan rushed from the cargo hold after gathering so much food as the sitution allowed them to take and hurried to the main deck.

They needed also more firepower, gunpowder and melee weapons, the swords. So they can only hope that the most of the mutineers were in the stateroom.

Suddenly, Flint took the map again from Judy's pocket.

"Flint! No!" Judy yelled and tried to grab to Flint, who successefully and playfully avoided her every attempt to catch him, laughing at the bunny's every failed attempt mischievously.

Flint escaped back in the cargo hold and Judy rushed after him.

"Judy, no! Come back!" Dr. Otterton yelled after seeing that Judy was going back to the cargo hold after Flint and map.

"Go! I'll catch you!" Judy yelled as response to them before disappearing into the cargo hold.

Even though a big reluctant Dr. Otterton had to keep moving with the rest of the crew if they were gonna make it out of the ship.

* * *

When they reached to deck, they found out that the whole deck was empty, except the warthog sailor, who was left behind to guard the door hole of the ship's armory.

So, Susan went ahead to the deck, sneaked quietly close enough of the warthog sailor and surprised the pirate by jumping out from the cover and firing quickly the bullet in the pirate's head, killing him instantly, before the warthog pirate had time to raise his own blunderbuss and fire back.

While the soldiers were by Susan's orders blocking the doors of the captain's stateroom with boards and cargo on the deck, Fabienne, Peter, White Fang, Claw, Jack and Baggy were preparing ship's two longboats and otters with captain Mchorn were gathering the swords, more pistols and muskets and few powder keg from the armory which they loaded to the longboats with the food.

They were also nailed the wooden hatch, which led to the cannon deck and which was the way they came out from under deck, to shut, hoping either to trap the pirates under deck or in attempt to buy to them enough time to prepare the boats and escape from the ship.

Leodore only in panic pushed the sailors and his own men to keep hurry in loading and preparing the longboats.

The lion didn't helped the sailors and soldiers in any way.

Suddenly, they heard the loud banging from insideof the nailed hatch and barred door of captain's stateroom.

"THEY'RE RIGHT BEHIND OF US!" Leodore roared in panic and jumped in one of the longboats.

"LET US OUT, YOU DOGS!" One of the pirates bellowed from under deck as they banged the hatch from inside.

"Everybody to the longboats! Quickly!" Susan shouted.

When the longboats were lowered to the water loaded with the food, weapons, gunpowder and a few other supplies, Susan, Otterton, Mchorn, Leodore, Fabienne and Peter and two Leodore's tiger soldiers climbed down the ladders in the ship's side into one of the boats while the rest of the crew climbed into another one.

And then, they started to row away from the ship.

"Where's Mrs. Hawkins?!" Susan yelled after she counted all of them to make sure that everyone escaped at once.

"No matter about that little brat! She's dead weight anyway! Now take me outta here!" Leodore roared in panic.

Suddenly, Mr. Hands the gorilla busted with his fists through the captain's stateroom's barred doors and rushed out followed by the other pirates.

Once they get out, they soon found the whole main deck empty, except the dead warthog lying near the door hole of the armory.

"They're out there!" Shouted the jackal pirate, pointing with his finger at the direction of the boats.

The pirates gathered to the railing and started to fire at the boats with the heavy fire.

The crew in the boats returned to fire.

"Chew on this, you filthy, treacherous bilge rats!" Susan shouted at the pirates while shooting at them herself.

One of the longboats was quite near the ship and easier target for the pirates.

They already lost the bear guard, who was hit in the head in between of the eyes. The bear fell over the boat's railing to the water, which produced a bit of difficulty on the boat's occupants to stay in balance due of bear's weight tilting the boat.

Suddenly, Otterton spotted the grenade next of him in the boat and got an idea.

Otterton quickly threw overboat one of the powder kegs and jumped to it in middle of the crossfire.

"Otterton! What are you doing?! Come back!" Susan yelled after him, fearing that Otterton might get shot to death in middle of the crossfire.

Otterton then jumped from the keg to the another boat and rushed to the boat's stern, where he quickly lit a grenade's slowmatch and threw it on the deck of a ship, aiming it to the post where was most of the pirates.

This was followed by a brief but unusually big explosion from the grenade on the deck, which damaged the railing near of the blast and shredded the shrouds of the main mast. The blast also tossed one of the cannons overboard from the deck and killed from Wilder's crew the black jaguar, the grey wolf, moose and Mr. Hands the gorilla in the process.

The pirates, who were not caught by the blast, had quickly rushed away from the railing and get to cover from the explosion. This hold their fire and bought some extra time for the crew to row away from the ship.

Otterton then jumped back into the longboat where Susan received her surprised about that what Otterton just did.

"A supporter of peace as docdor, huh? And still you took down four of them." Susan said to Otterton, clearly impressed from the such of act.

"Well, they sometimes forced even me too to fight on their side in the royal navy." Otterton explained.

"But why such of blast from one little grenade?" Fabienne asked as she rowed.

"Well, before our escape from the ship, I happened to spot that we accidentally left one of the powder kegs near of that place where I just tossed the grenade. I aimed my throw right there as an attempt to buy us more time to get away from the ship." Otterton answered.

Suddenly, they were under the fire again and they had to row faster to get out of the range.

"Mr. Vincent, Mbaya! Prepare the cannons!" Wilder barked at the grizzly bear and rogue elephant named Vincent and Mbaya from the ship's bridge after the boats had reached outside of the fire range of pistols and muskets.

Wilder took the look at the boats, counting the boat's occupants and realizing that Judy wasn aboard none of them. So, he believed that that rabbit was still aboard Zoopaniola.

But why that bunny was still aboard even though Zoopaniola was already taken over by them? Was the question what Wilder wondered in his mind.

And so, Wilder disappeared to under deck to check it out.

And as he about to climb down the another stairs to the cannon deck...

"Flint! Get back here! Flint!" Wilder heard someone yelling under deck. Someone who sounded exactly like Judy.

As Wilder get to the cannon deck, he realized that Judy was out ther as well.

The bunny was trying desperately to catch Captain Flint who duck her every attempt to catch the monkey, who, much to Judy's annoyance in the such of serious situation, interpreted the entire situations as the joke

Wilder noticed that Flint was holding something in his hands.

"The map!" Wilder whispered.

Flint once again ducked Judy's attempt to catch him and mischievously stuck his tongue out at her.

"Flint! Flint, come here." Wilder called after he appeared behind of the mast and started to whistle as call for Flint.

Flint starts to walk towards his master, until turns to Judy as she called him by the name.

"Flint. Flint. Bring it here. Flint, come here." Judy called Flint, trying to keep her patience under control now when Wilder was once again in the presence.

Flint turned around to walk towards Judy, but he was again stopped by the call coming from Wilder's side.

"Come here. Come here, boy. Come to your daddy." Wilder called again, desperately trying to get the monkey coming to him with the map.

"Flint. Over here, come here, boy. Flint!" Judy continued calling, starting slowly grow to impatient.

Flint started to get quite confused due of inability to choose unto whom he should go.

"Come on, Fliiii'iiiint. Come to daddyyyyy, Flint." Wilder half-calmly called the monkey.

"Flint, Flint, Flint! Here! Flint!" Judy called as she started to completely lose her patience.

Suddenly, Flint dove into a pile of wrapped ropes with the map.

Wilder tried to move towards the pile, but he moved too hastily forward and due the pain in his still sore peg leg from Judy's hard strike to his cripple leg back in the galley, he fell over to the floor.

Grinding their teeth and groaning in pain, Wilder tried to reach to the pile of rope by crawling, hoping to get the map finally into his paws.

Even though his sore leg slowed him down, he was still able to get to the pile and was about to stretch out his paw into the pile...

However, Judy reached to it first and grapped the paper into her paws, causing Wilder turn his attention confused and angrily at Judy.

Judy took the very last look at at him, her eyes full of hate towards Wilder due of his betrayal, and then turned away to escape from him the map in her paws.

Wilder quickly stood up on his kneels and took out his uploaded pistol.

Wilder was the master shooter and even skilled enough to shoot even a fast-moving targets, bunnies for example, down with ease.

So, Wilder raised his pistol andf took the aim at running Judy when she headed towards the stairs to the deck.

As the pistol was aimed at Judy's occipital for the instantly killing gunshot and Wilder was about to pull the trigger of his pistol, the angry and hardened expression on his face suddenly started slowly to turn into concerned between of two choices: either to shoot this bunny to death or not.

His pistol holding paw and arm was shaking.

He soon realized that he was hesitating to shoot Judy from behind.

He did not know that what's bothering. Why did he hesitated to do it? Why didn't he already pulled the trigger and shot a bunny in the head while he still had a chance. A bloodthirsty pirate is not supposed to hesitate but to kill directly without question. Then what was wrong with him?

Wilder soon realized that Israel Grey was right all a long. Wilder realized himself that he indeed had the soft spot for Judy. The feeling what Wilder himself felt towards that spunky little bunny appeared to be his newfound weakness... and that's why he couldn't bring himself to shoot her.

Eventually, out of frustration and even worry for Judy's life, Wilder lowered his weapon and allowed Judy to escape for now.

* * *

After climbing on the deck, Judy quickly rushed towards the railing and jumped overboard into the water and started quickly swim towards the boats, which were quite far from her and the ship

Some pirates spotted her from rushing from under deck towards the railing and jumping overboard into the water, so the pirates turned their pistols and muskets at her and opened the brutal fire.

In order to avoid being shot by the pirates, Judy took a deep breath and dived below the surface in cover from the gunshots, while continuing to swim below the surface after the longboats... and even deeper underwater to avoid the bullets more better.

However, after staying very long under the surface safe from the gunshots, Judy started to realize that the oxygen was slowly starting to run out of her. So, a rapidly growing lack of oxygen forced Judy to swim back to the surface... even though the pirates were still there waiting for her.

She would be easy target to the pirates on the surface, but he did not have any other choice but to swim to the surface for a breath of oxygen.

As Judy reached to the surface, she looked behind of her seeing the pirate ship turned Zoopaniola at some distance from her, telling her that it was now one percent from a one hundred percent of certainty, that the pirates would be able to shot her to death from beyond of such a long distance.

Judy then turned around and started to swim towards the boats, even though slowly and weakly due the exhaustion due the lack of oxygen.

"Dr. Otterton!" Judy called heavily panting after the boats, tyring at the same time her best to wave her paw to get their attention.

Otterton heard Judy calling him from a small distance away from them and turned to look for her with his eyes.

"Judy!" Otterton called after he finally spotted Judy's head barely floating on the surface, as the bunny was desperately tyring get to them.

"Please, wait!" Judy shouted weakly.

Otterton then turned hastily to Peter, Fabienne and the tigers.

"Turn the boat around!" Otterton ordered.

"Are you nuts, Mr. Otterton?! Don't you see that they're preparing the ship's cannons! We have to get out of here before they started to hammer us with the cannonballs!" Leodore strongly protested, worrying only for his own safety.

"We do not leave her behind!" Susan said sternly back and ordered Peter, Fabienne and especially the tigers to turn the boat around to pick Judy from the water.

"She was the only one of all of us, who spotted this entire mutiny. We owe her a lot" Fabienne growled at Leodore, disgusted by his lazy, and cowardly selfish behaviors.

"And without that bunny, we would not be alive at the moment" Peter added.

As Leodore growled back at them as his response, Peter and Fabienne turned the boat around and started to row towards Judy while another boat was almost reaching to the shore.

Exhausted, wet and nearly drowning due of exhaustion of the lack of oxyden, Judy finally reached to the boat.

Otterton, Susan, Peter and Fabienne quickly helped her out of the water to the boat and Otterton wrapped his coat around of Judy to keep her warm.

"I got the map!" Judy said, still panting from her long and exhausting swimming trip underwater.

However, the crew was not gonna let them to escape so easily.

"That's it, come to papa!" Crizzly shouted to the direction of the boats and raised his paw into air.

"Take aim! Ready?!" Vincent Shouted.

Suddenly, Wilder rushed back to the deck and realized that what the crew was about to do... or more likely, what he himself had ordered the men to do. They were by his orders ready to give a volley to the boat's occupants and Judy... plus map... was among of them.

"Vincent! Hold your fire, you idiots! We lose the map!" Wilder yelled trying to stop his men from firing but it was to late.

"FIRE!" Vincent ordered.

The cannons then fired their cannonballs as the volley at the boats.

"LOOK OUT! CANNONBALL VOLLEY AT TWELVE O'CLOCK!" Otterton loudly warned.

Judy's eyes widened in shock as she watched the fast approaching volley heading straight towards of them.

"Brace yourself!" Susan ordered.

It didn't helped. The cannonballs hit to the water all around of their longboat and the waves, which hit to the boat's sides, brought difficulties for the boat's occupants to stay in balance or even keep moving.

And just when things could not get any worse, one of the cannonballs hit straight in the middle of the boat… cutting the boat in half and killing Mchorn in the process!

"Yeah, baby! Ka-boom-ba! Ha ha ha ha!" Vincent cheered with satisfaction after witnessing one of the boats getting hit and was about to sink.

As the longboat's separated parts sunk, the survivors from the blast saved all what they could from sinking and then they swam to the beach.

Otterton, as the good swimmer due of being river otter, wrapped his arm around of Judy's waist and carried her with him to the beach. Knowing that Judy was still greatly exhausted to swim from swimming so long beneath the surface and still a lack of oxygen.

"Hang on, Judy. We're almost on the shore." Otterton whispered at Judy's ear as they were about to reach to the beach.

However, once Leodore, Otterton, still recovering Judy, Susan, Peter, Fabienne and the tiger guards managed to reach ashore and before Susan even managed to give any order like. "Empty the boat from everything we need," one of the cannonballs from the second volley fired at them hit straight to their another longboat, destroying most of its cargo.

After the blast which destroyed their laast boat and as the more cannonballs hit all around of then in the beach, Susan ordered all of them to gather everything what they're able to save from the blasts and run to the jungle, as the more cannonballs started to hit freely all around to the sand of the beach.

A new volley of cannonballs were fired after them to the jungle.

They had to be careful in the jungle, because the hard, devastating and deadly speed flying cannonballs caused by hitting to the trees all around of them to toss the sharp pieces of wood everywhere, plus cut down the palm trees on them.

One cannonball unfortunately smashed through of the palm tree right behind of Susan's and tossed the female otter down, much to Otterton's shock.

Otterton was about to turn around and rush to Susan's aid, but Susan demanded him to keep going with the rest of them, as she a bit dizzy from the blast rose back on her feet, with the help of Jack and Baggy, and ran after others.

* * *

Meanwhile, back in the ship.

"Hold your fire, your idiots! Damned! Hold your fire!" Wilder barked angrily at the crew as he limped on the deck.

The crew suddenly stopped uploading and firing with the cannons by Wilder's orders, much to their disappointment.

"Are you damned pea-brains gonna bring down the entire palm tree jungle without hitting even a tiny fly like them... AND AT THE SAME TIME RUN OUT OUR ENTIRE CANNON AMMUNITION?!" Wilder angrily barked at his men, who quickly backed down from their angry captain.

Wilder then limped to the railing and glared at the shore where Judy and the rest of the opposite side of the crew just stood a moment ago before they rushed to the jungle out of the cannon fire range.

Wilder let put the deep angry growl to escape from his lips.

Then Mbaya and Vincent arrived to their captain.

"But captain, we did just like you ordered us to do. We prepared the cannons and fired at them. Wasn't that your order, sir?" Mbaya reminded.

"We killed at least one of them, sir, but also most of their supplies and food." Vincent added.

However, both of them earned from their captain the death glare targeted at them, causing both of them to back off a bit.

"Yes, I did! But I did belay that order which you nevertheless passed to the crew! And why did I belay the order?" Wilder angrily asked from his pea-brained and deaf-eared men.

The crew members were quite confused by the question Qilder asked from them and unsure how to respond to it.

"It was because of that bunny, who somehow overheard our plans of the mutiny earlier this morning, forcing us to move earlier than what we had planned. She got Flint's map and she got away from the ship with them. THE MAP IS THE CORRECT ANSWER TO IT WHY DID I BELAY THE ORDER TO FIRE AT THEM!" Wilder barked, before he turned his attention at Vincent and Mbaya.

"AND BECAUSE OF YOU TWO WARMONGER CABBAGE-BRAINS, WE EITHER ALMOST OR COMPLETELY LOST THE MAP... AND WITH IT THE TREASURE AT THE SAME TIME... IN THAT DAMNED CANNONFIRE!"

Vincent and Mbaya backed away from their furious captain, clearly embarrassed in the front of the entire crew by their captain's scolding insults.

Wilder then turned around to glare to the shore, the angry expression on his face.

The silence fell upon the Zoopaniola's deck, for a while.

Then Weaselton climbed down from the crown's nest and came shyly and a bit fearfully next of Wilder.

"So, uh... what now, captain?" Weaselton dared to shyly and a bit of fearful ask, breaking the silence.

Wilder suddenly and angrily turned around to limped through of his pea-brained crew, which was waiting for the orders from their captain.

"Prepare the remaining longboats and gather enough of food, supplies, weapons and gunpowder we need. We go ashore and after them to pick up the map... but my own way." Wilder ordered.

As the crew members started to gather enough of weapons, food, gunpowder and other supplies from the armory and cargo hold and prepare the remaining longboats for going on shore, Wilder stopped Vincent and Mbaya with his crutch and the cold death glare.

Even though they were as an elephant and grizzly bear larger and stronger than the fox, they knew that the foxes had always a thing or two dishonest cheeky tricks to bring down even an elephant.

And both of them were absolutely not gonna find out that what kind of tricks they were expecting from the fox, who happened to be their captain.

"And you two, you better hope that we get that map unharmed and in one piece, because if we don't, I'm gonna have your two's heads on the plates!" Wilder threatened with the dark tone before letting Vincent and Mbaya to pass.

Wilder then limbed back to the railing and looked back to the shore and the jungle.

Even though he had acted, or pretended, such of bloodthirsty and heartless pirate, He couldn't help but feel sorry and sympathy for Judy and wonder that what that rabbit would think of him right now after what he had with the back-stabbing gesture said about her behind her back.

That bunny would never trust him again, hardly even listen to what he had to say.

However, Wilder reminded silently himself that if this should be done his way, He could try to make it as politically, diplomatically and without needless bloodshed as possible.

He could only hope that they would be even slightly reasonable and willing to listen him.

* * *

 **I hoped if you liked this chapter.  
See ya net time when the seventh chapter is out.**


	7. Chapter 7: Meeting Ben

**HELLO TO ALL CURRENT AND UPCOMING FANS AND FOLLOWERS OF TREASURE TROPOLIS!  
The seventh chapter of TREASURE TROPOLIS if finally finished and out.  
I hope that you enjoy this chapter.  
Enjoy reading!**

* * *

Meanwhile, back in the jungle

Even though they noticed that the cannonfire had either stopped or then they had reached far outside of the range of cannonfire, they still kept running further in the jungle... Leodore ahead of the others.

After they were deep in the jungle, safely far away from the beach, they were finally able to stop running and take some breath.

Everyone were exhausted and even a bit dizzy due ofrunning as fast as their legs and carring all of it the heavy weight of everything they managed to save from the beach

Exhausted Judy sat down to the rock and leaned against the palm tree behind of her, panting heavily.

"Oh, my... goodness. That was... that was more fun than l... ever want to have... have again." Otterton said with the exhausted tone as he wearily bowed down and put his paws on his kneels and panted strongly due of all of that running.

The otters were good to swim and they were skillful with the medical treatment, at least Otterton was, but running for their lives on dry land, with the exception of running on all fours, fighting and killing the pirates, wasn't exactly his stuff.

"Well, Otterton. At least we're alive and that's after all a good side in this situation." Susan said as she drew herself up.

Suddenly, the unexpected pain caught Susan's body, which caused her to fell on her kneels, clenching her teeth in pain and clutching her left side.

Her blue captain's jacket turned to blood red from the place on her side as she held her side with her paw.

"Susan?!" Otterton gasped, rushing to her side and checked her side.

"She has been shot!" Peter yelled, much to the crew members shock and worry for their captain.

With Judy's, Fabienne's and Peter's help, Otterton started to help Susan back on her feet but during of which, Susan waved her paw towards Judy and the worried crew members signaling them to stand back and that she did not needed help.

Or then she just did not wanted to appear weak before the survived members of the crew.

"Oh, don't fuss." Susan said as she got back on her feet, but soon a new but this time a bit lighter pain wave got her to collapse. This time Otterton was prepared for this and got her into his paws preventing her to fall to the ground again.

However, Susan got a little her own strength back to tand up and she lightly pushed Otterton away, definitely not wanting to appear weak.

"Slight scratch from the piece of wood, that's all. Cup of tea and l'll be right as rain." Susan said as she stood back to her feet.

"But captain, you should let me to check how bad your wounds are and try to treat them to prevent the possible infection." Otterton said with the worried tone.

"Don't bother, Otterton dear, I'm fine. I'm not going to let one scratch to slow me down." Susan said firmly.

"Enough of this! That otter is fine, at least she looks fine to my but no matter. Can anyone explain that where we are?" Leodore shouted until Baggy, White Fang and Claw, plus Judy, all four of them put their fingers front of their lips and hushed him, signaling him to be quiet.

Then Susan turned to Judy.

"Mrs. Hawkins, the map, if you please. We have to know that where we are and where we have to go now." Susan said and stretched out her paw towards Judy.

Judy immediately pushed her paw into her pocket, to where she put the map after she had saved it from Wilder back in the cannon deck, and started to search for the map with her fingers. Eventually she found it and pulled the map out of her pocket and, with the triumphant smile on her face, she handed it over to Susan.

Susan opened the map to check that where they were on the map... until, much to her confusion, she found the "map" being actually just black piece of paper, but to which was written mockingly...

"GOTCHA!"

"Mrs. Hawkins! What is this?! Somekind of foolish joke?!" Susan said with the frustrated and demanding tone to Judy as she turned the paper around to show the mocking written to her... much to Judy's shock and confusion.

"Whatta…?!" Judy shouted in confusion. She could swear that she most certainly saved the map-like a piece of paper from Wilder's fingers back in the cannon deck during of their narrow escape, after Captain Flint dived among the ropes and...

Unless...

Then, she heard some annoyingly familiar chuckling inside of her bag.

Judy removed the bag from her back and peeped inside.

And much to her surprise, Captain Flint himself appeared outside of the bag, laughing loudly and quite mischievously.

"Flint?! FLINT, WHERE'S THE MAP?!" Judy angrily yelled.

Flint casually and with the mischievous grin, pointed with his finger to the direction from where they all came from... actually, the direction and the location of Zoopaniola, much to their, especially Judy's, shock and anger.

ARE YOU SERIOUS, YOU GODDAMNED MONKEY?! YOU LEFT IT BACK ON THE SHIP?!" Judy yelled in pure rage, with the expression on her face, which showed that Judy was at the moment over ten times much angrier and angrily frustrated than any rabbit could be in her entire life, especially now knowing that the map was still among the ropes on the cannon deck and Zoopaniola was at the moment overrun by the pirates... meaning that they were probably already found the map as well as now they were all both stuck and lost in the island, thanks to that at this very moment the most annoying monkey of all primates.

Flint took an innocent expression on his face, as every person in presence was staring at him with the annoyed and angry look on their faces.

However, that blasted monkey tried once again to escape from Judy's grip as she angrily lunged at him, still thinking that this entire situation was all just a funny game. But this time, angry and dead serious Judy was this time more than just prepared for that.

As Flint tried to climb to the tree to avoid Judy's grip, Judy jumped to another and a bit smaller one, which bent down a bit until it rocketed her towards the monkey, managing to grab to the badly surprised Flint from his tail and roughly pulling the monkey down from the tree.

As punishment for tricking and probably dooming them all, Judy tied the rope around of the monkey's neck and kept its another end in her paws to prevent the monkey from escaping out of her sight, and first and foremost. To prevent him from doing any more stupidity as he had already done, much to monkey's annoyance.

Flint tried to get Judy to free him from the rope by letting out from his mouth the fake cries of pain and acting, almost actualize, that he was suffering and the rope was strangling him. (Does this remind you from someone.)

However, Judy's emotions were replaced by the dead seriousness, wariness and annoyance towards that monkey.

"Nice try, Flint. But blame yourself for that! You yourself brought the stituation like this upon of all of us in the first place" Judy said, harshly scolding to the monkey.

Suddenly, Jack jumped down from the tree to them. He had climbed to the highest palm tree to check the aroundings after the "map" was found to be fake... but instead of the report about the aroundings, more likely the warnings were spilled out of his mouth.

"I urge you guys to shut that monkey's mouth and keep keep your own voices low now. We've got company. I saw up there that the pirates are already heading to this way in the longboats from Zoopaniola... armed to the teeth. They're probably coming for us. Seemingly they do not want to stop until every last one of us is hunted down and killed." Jack warned.

"Even though we saved so few of weapons, food and ammo. It would be much easier to leave us here to starve and now they want to get rid of us personally." White Fang said, disgusted from the idea that they were hunted.

"Great! Just what we needed! Now we're hunted by those pirates even after they have the ship and the map. I usually like hunting But I do not like myself to be hunted by those savages who want us dead." Leodore said, with worried tone.

"What are we gonna do now?" Baggy asked, as worried as well.

Susan then began to think about the situation and their next move briefly, before she opened her mouth to speak.

"Let them come to hunt us down if that's what they want. We'll fight back, but at first, we need a safe and more defensible position where we can make our base and camp, recover and fully prepare for them." Susan said and turned to Judy.

"Mrs. Hawkins, scout ahead. We come after you as soon as we are prepared for the worst just in case." Susan ordered and handed Otterton's pistol to Judy's paws,

Even though Judy already had couple rabbit-sized pistols from Susan's stateroom's cabinet, it was better to have couple pistols as the self-defense as much of their own gun powder and weaponry was destroyed by their own ship's cannonfire.

"Aye, captain." Judy replied, took the pistol from Susan and started to leave with the Flint

Leodore couldn't believe his ears.

"You gotta be kidding me, captain? Are you seriously handing over this... even so simple task to that brat after she had already failed two important tasks?" Leodore yelled in disbelief, annoying Judy in the process as she overheard him from a small distance.

"She didn't failed them, Leodore. Previous task back in the storm was ruthlessly sabotaged by that another fox, who made her look as the failure before our blind eyes... and the that task to protect the map with her life failed only because she was too busy to check that piece of paper more carefully and she had to get out of there." Otterton said, defending Judy as she departed to the jungle of this mysterious island.

"Well, she in fact befriended with that pirate fox, who plotted the entire mutiny. Besides, who knows if that brat only gets lost in the palm jungle out there or treacherously take us directly into our hunters' fingers and gets all of us killed. No way! There's no way that long-eared brat will trick me." Leodore declared firmly.

"And most importantly, Nothing like this would never have happened if I had hired a crew and the captain instead of you, otter."

Otterton gave to the governor a dark glare, disgusted of Leodore's manners.

Otterton was about to say something back, until a new pain wave unexpectedly took over Susan's body. Unable to ignore the pain any longer, Susan let out the cry of pain as her legs gave up and she was about to collapse on the ground.

Otterton managed to grab her to his hands before she fell completely on the ground.

"Steady, steady, Susan!" Otterton said as he carefully lowered her on her back to the ground.

"Now, let's have a look at that." Otterton said and started to examine her wounds with all of it he had at the moment.

By his request, the remaining sailors and soldiers surrounded them into the protective ring the swords in the paws and the muskets and pistols uploaded... just in case.

* * *

After reaching a some distance away from the others in the jungle, Judy walked the Captain Flint as her companion trying to find some protective position for them.

The even though it was already mid-day, the darkness fell upon of her with the every step further into the jungle.

It was because of the palm trees, which grew so densely around her, that they formed a canopy of palm leaves over the jungle, preventing light from entering the jungle and leaving only a very small slits, of which the light barely reached through.

And not to mention about when the day starts to turn to afternoon, which meant that the jungle would get more and more darker than what it was already, which meant that she could get lost in the night dark jungle, with the very low chances to find the way back to the others...

And she even had no idea that was she alone out here or not. The dark jungle would possibly hide many kind of danggerous threats within them... and worst of all were other animals, mostly predators, who had shipwrecked on the islands and due of lack of company, food and water and driven by the lust of survival... they had completely lost their mammality and turned into the primitive, mindless savages.

Judy had heard the many tales about the unfortunate sailors, who had get lost in the jungle at the nighttime... and unfortunately get hunted down and savagely eaten by the savaged predators.

Judy's ears fell down against the back of her head and she took one of the pistols into her hands just in case if she would be attacked by Wilder's pirates or then the savaged predator.

After couple and half hours, she was still walking around while searching the perfect place to make camp and make stand against Wilder and his crew.

Suddenly, her sense of hearing catched the sounds of steps right behind of her.

Judy quickly turned around to check that who was behind of her and raised her pistol to point it to possibly erratic stranger, but much to her surprise, she didn't saw anyone behind her.

Judy just ignored what she had just heard, assuming that the sounds of the steps were probably just another Flint's stupid trick, even though the monkey was fully under of her eyewatch and in the end of the rope, unable to escape in any way.

Judy was about to continue on her way, until...

She suddenly heard again, and this time, a bit louder sounds of the steps again. Plus the nearby bush right behind of her rustled like something was moving in the bush.

A bit startled, but assuming Flint to be the responsible of these sounds, Judy turned quickly around, expecting to see Flint having escaped from the end of the rope and starting once again to make fun of her.

However, Judy was rather surprised to see that Flint was still in the place, still tied from the neck in the end of the rope and not having escaped as she had expected.

Now she was fully aware that the sounds were not Flint's doings but of that she was not alone.

There was somebody else with her... stalking her and was like trying to get her to play the hide-and-seek game with it whatever it is.

Then the leafes in the another nearby bush rustled as well, which caused Flint to make the fearful noises and get behind of Judy's back for cover.

Judy brought her finger to her lips, warning the monkey to be quiet, before she pulled her pistol out and slowly, headed towards the bushes, pointing her pistol at the bushes.

It was quiet... maybe too quiet as the stalker seemed to freeze in the place among the bushes and did not moved, which made the difficult to know that in which bush the stalker was hiding from her.

Frustrated, after knowing that the stalker was kind of playing hide-and-seek game on her, Judy broke the silence by opening her mouth as she still continued slowly approaching the bushes.

"Okay, who ever you are, you better to come out, nice and easily! I've guns and I'll not hesitate to use them!" Judy warned.

However, nothing happened.

And still nothing happened as she reached very close... right next to the bushes and wiated for while.

Still… nothing happened.

Then Judy decided to move the bushes aside to check if anything was hiding behind the bushes or among the bushes.

"Hello!" Suddenly yelled the figure who unexpectedly jumped out of nowhere right front of Judy's face.

Judy screamed badly surprised and by the reflexes she tried to raise her pistol at the figure and fire at the figure without thinking and hesitation, but the figure lunged at her, tackled her and pinned her to the ground, getting her to lose her grib from the pistol.

The figure was bigger and stronger than Judy but at least it was not predator.

In fact, the figure was yak who had a quite big, thick and bushy hair and brown dirty fur.

"Oh, this is SO fantastic! On two legs walking and talking furry long-eared life form come to rescue me at last! l just want to hug you and squeeze you very hard and hold you close to me." The yak yelled and wrapped Judy into hug and squeezed her veeeery hard!

Much to Judy's shock, the yak was also naked!

He had not even a loincloth, which freaked her totally out and she tried to get out of yak's embrace.

"Oh, my god! EEEEW! You're naked! YOU'RE NAKED!" Judy cried in shock and disgust after realizing this and tried twice to get out of yak's squeezing embrace in order to turn around and cover her eyes with her paws, preventing herself to watch this.

Yak only wrapped her into his arms to squeezing embraces three times more, and the last one of which was so squeezing hug that Judy almost couldn't even breath.

"All right, all right! Okay, okay! You got your hug!" Judy said trying to get out from yak's embrace.

"Stop! Stop! Stop! Let go of me! I barely can even breath!" Judy cried.

Lucky for her, yak eventually, and finally, notized this and immediately loosened his grip.

"Oh, yeah! Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry!" Yak apologized and backed down.

Judy was finally able to turn around and cover her eyes with her paws to prevent herself to see the yak's nakedness, until yak then kneeled down next of her and landed his right arm and hoof-fingered hand over of her shoulders, much to Judy's disgust because of the yak's disgustingly stinking dirty fur and all those flies flying around of his hair.

"My apologized, I did not mean to squeeze the life out of you. lt's just, l've been marooned here for so long. l mean, solitude's sometimes fine. Don't get me wrong. For heaven's sakes... how I can explain this... be in here all alone a several decades, without anyone to talk, and because of the massive lack of small-talk company, YOU GO A LITTLE NUTS! Ha ha ha!" Yak explained, then yelled, and finished the explonation with the laugh.

Noticing Judy's glare, which was mix of both disgust due to yak's nakedness and annoyance by the fact that he was touching her against her will, yak immediately and humbly stood up and backed away for two steps after realizing this.

"My apology, where did I lost my manners… Oh yeah!" Yak mutered and offered his hand towards Judy as a greeting.

"Well, ahem. Hello. l am, um... sorry. My name is, uh... Just a minute. You can call me… uh…" Yak tried to introduce himself, but he apparently had a little difficulty to remember his own name and started to search it from his memory.

Flint, who had climbed on Judy's left shoulder, started to swirl his finger above of his head, roll his eyes and mimicked cuckoo clock's sound "Cuckoo cuckoo" twice, until a bit giggling and smirking at this, Judy gently knocked Flint's head with her paw… referring him to stop.

"Yes?" Judy asked.

"BEN! Of course, I'm Ben Yax. "The yak who has the memory of the elephant." Or at least Old Ben says so." Yak, called Ben Yax, exclaimed.

"And you are?" Ben asked for Judy's name.

"Judy. Judy Hawkins." Judy answered as she was trying to pick the pistol from the ground in order to put it back to hang under the belt after making it clear that Ben wasn't threat... but instead, quite annoying living slowing barrier.

But before she even touched her weapon, Ben grabbed from her paw with both of his hands and started harshly to shake it in greeting.

"Oh, what the pleasure to meet you, Juicy!" Ben said eagerly, even though Judy rudely pulled her paw off from his hands.

"It's just Judy." Judy said with the annoyed tone, grimacing at her new nickname, which Ben gave to her.

"Anyway… whatever." Ben said and leaned against the nearby tree.

Judy finally lift her pistol from the ground and put it back to hang under the belt

"Hey, Look. It was nice to meet you too but l'm kind of in a hurry, OK?" Judy said, trying to get rid of the yak as soon as possible to continue her way before the dark falls upon the forest.

"I gotta find a place to hide, and there's pirates chasing me and..." Judy tried to explain but Ben interrupted her after hearing the word "pirates."

"Oh, pirates! Pirates, those miserable garbages of the seas! Don't even try to get Old Ben to talk about the pirates! Oh, no! You have no clue how much the Old Ben dislike the pirates!" Ben said with the disgusted tone.

Judy simply continued the walking with Flint, ignoring what Ben had just said because it wasn't new to her. She knew exactly how much everyone honest mammal and sailor disliked even that word "pirates" and it's meanings.

"For example, Old Ben remembers well one called Captain Flint. This one had such a bad temper that..." Ben said as he sit down on the rock until.

Judy's half-lowered ears jumped up in the seconds and her eyes widened by the surprise after she heard Ben mention the famous and fearsome Captain Flint and spoke about him like he had knew the latter, causing her to turn her head around to look at Ben, before she turned completely around and walked back to Ben, interrupting him immediately.

"What? Wow! Wait, wait, wait! You knew Captain Flint?" Judy asked out of curiosity.

"Old Ben thinks he suffered some kind of mood swings. To be honest, Old Ben isn't a therapist in any way, but Old Ben... if you don't mind, you let Old Ben to know if he's rambling!" Ben answered to Judy, who rolled her eyes by annoyance because she got not the answers to her questions.

But still, there was another thing in her bunny mind.

"But that means that if you truly knew him like you two were pals, right? Judy asked curiously, hoping to get yak to say something more what he actually knew... and hopefully something better this time.

"Of course Old Ben knew him, Juicy. Old Ben was his former navigator on his ship during of his trips all around the Caribbean Seas. Of course, we two weren't the best pals. To him, Old Ben was just the slave serving him humbly and without question in his now-dead crew, and to Old Ben, he was the fox-sized or a bit bigger brown-haired bunny who…"

The word "bunny" came to Judy as a surprise, because none story told that what kind of animal Captain Flint actually was before the latter mysteriously disappeared.

"Wow! Wow! Wait for minute! Did you just said that Captain Flint is in fact a bunny like me?!" Judy asked out of curiosity.

"Well, from outside, yes. He was a rabbit by his species, but Old Ben would not say the same from inside of him. If you had never met him personally, you'd know what Old Ben means. He had kind of the heart of iron without feelings, compassion or mercy. All what he got to his mind was only riches and the undying dream to become the richest pirate of all pirates of the Caribbean. Leaving always bloody mess and the huge destruction behind of him even for the one single gold coin."

"Those ones who saw him, well, were always underestimating him because he was the bunny. Big mistake from them, because he was the fearless and spunky like the bengal tiger. Always was the first one in battle with the claws like the black swords and he always skinned alive the poor ones who were wrong to underestimate him."

"He was also sometimes very sly as the foxes, outsmarting once supposedly the most cunning fox of the Caribbean and sometimes quite bad-tempered as grumpy grizzly bear, always killing even of his crew members when he was in bad mood and needed something to dismantle his petulance or when he wasn't pleased even to quite tiny mistake. Totally fearsome bunny on the Caribbean Sea." Ben explained

Judy then take for moment to think what we would ask next from the yak.

"If you know about him so much, that means... but wait. Then you gotta know something... about the treasure?" Judy asked.

Yak was immediately like he has never heard about the treasure.

"Excuse me what? What treasure?" He asked in confusion.

"Yeah! You have heard the stories? Flint's trove? The Loot of the Seven Seas? Anything about it? That's why I'm here trying to find it." Judy explained to the onfused yak.

Ben then stood up on his feet and knocked twice to his head, trying to search in his mind for the memory which he had probably almost forgotten.

"It's… well, it's... it's all a little... little... little fuzzy."

Then Yak's head jumped up.

"Wait! Old… Old… Old Ben… r-r-r-remembers. Old Ben do… Old… Oh, yes! The treasure! Flint's treasure! Lots of treasure! buried in the center... some kind of center... center of the stony mechanism and gigantic fire room!".

"And there was... the map! Map! Stone map! Engraved... to the wall! Stone wall! Full… full of writings… in… in zooztec…! And there was... ten! Ten! Ten stone buttons… in the wall! Under… under the map! And... big stone... door... opening and closing… and opening and closing... leading to the stone labyrinth" Ben said searching more from his memory before taking a brief pause.

"And Captain Flint wanted to make sure... nobody, except the worthy one(s), could ever get to his treasure... so Old Ben helped him... and... and... and… AND... AND... AND... AND… AND!"

Ben started to hammer his head to the tree and even to drum his head with his fists loudly yelling the word "And" as he tried to remember something else which he had completely forgotten.

Yak also began to raise his voice, much to Judy's horror, due to the current and very serious and deadly pirate threat upon her and the others

As Ben's voice raised louder and louder, So that it echoed quite loud in the airspace of the jungle, Judy feared the fact that wherever the pirates currently were, there was the possibility that the pirates may hear yak's loud shoutings from afar... which would reveal them to their persecutors and led them right to them.

Worse of it was that Ben's apparent stress was going severely overloaded and his voice raised more louder and louder, causing Judy almost to go in panic due the fear of being found by the pirates.

"Ben? BEN? BEN!" Judy yelled in half-panic, but yak wasn't responding to Judy anymore nor showed any sign of calming down. Yak still continued super loudly shouting the same "and" word.

Ben left Judy with no choice but to hit strongly into the yak's face with the wooden stick in desperate attempt to get Ben to calm down and shut his mouth. fortunately to her, Ben finally calmed down...

...But unfortunately to her, as Ben simply spit the tooth out of his mouth and turned back to Judy.

"And you are?" Yak asked, much to Judy's surprise and shock.

He had just completely forgotten everything during the last couple of minutes?!

"Wait, wait, wait! What about the treasure?" Judy asked.

"Are you male or female? If you are either of them, can Old Ben call you either Judas or Juicy?" Ben simply replied.

"What did you mean with… with all of that? That… center of the... stony mechanism and... and that fire room? The map… in the wall, ten... stone buttosn, big stone door... in the wall, the labyrinth. What did you mean all of that?!" Judy yelled trying to jog Ben's memory, desperately hoping to get the yak to remember where they exactly were a couple minutes ago.

"Old Ben is sorry. He-he-he's memory isn't what it used to be. And he's lost his mind. Ha ha! he's lost his mind!" Yak said shaking his hair.

"Otherwise, do you have something to eat? Did you brought some cheese, did you? Old Ben is dying of waiting to have some taste of cheese." Ben asked and tried to search cheese from Judy's clothes until Judy shaked his dirty hands off her.

"Look, Ben, I'm sorry, but... I-I really need to find a place to hide for me and my friends, OK? So l'm just gonna be, you know, moving on. And sorry, I've not some cheese for you. So… so long." Judy said and tried to depart with Captain Flint, much to Ben's shock and sadness.

"Oh, uh, so, well, then… Old Ben guesses, uh… this is goodbye, huh?" The yak said, looking and sounding so depressed after all these years being trapped alone in this island, then finding finally even someone to talk and then being abandoned… again.

"Old Ben is sorry that he… he's so dysfunctional. So, uh, go ahead and… Old Ben does understand. Yes, he does. Bye-bye." Ben said.

Ben dropped onto his knees and lay pitifully on the ground, looking away from Judy.

Judy turned sslowly around to look back Ben, who did not looked back at her. He just lay kneeling on the ground in the such of pitiful look like that.

Judy found herself struggling in between of her emotions: seriousness and empathy plus between of two choices: leave the yak behind like that and continue to search the place to hide or then let him come along... and somehow try to put up with his annoying company in the very serious situation.

To Judy, this yak was quite annoying, much-talking, more than less serious (except of disliking the pirates) and a bit disgusting due to his dirt and fetid fur, flies-filled hair and his nakedness, but still Judy began slowly and somewhat reluctantly to feel sorry for the yak, after learning that he had been all alone here for years with the massive lack of any kind of company.

Even Captain Flint gave to Judy the sad look, pleading him with his eyes.

Judy rolled her eyes and sighed in sign of giving up.

Judy decided to take Ben along with them, but only for another reason why Judy gave up.

Because this yak has been spent most of his life on this island, he was probably the only animal alive who knew the island much better than anyone else, so he might not be completely useless.

"Look, if you're gonna come along, you're gonna have to stop talking." Judy said, silently hoping that she would not regret this.

Ben, after hearing that, leapt to his feet, shouting and laughing loudly and joyously as he unexpectedly leapt into Judy's arms and hugged her small form, as Judy struggled with the yak's weight over her and to keep her balance.

"REALLY?! HURRAH! HA-HA-HA! Oh, this is so fantastic! Old Ben and his new best cute bunny buddy are looking for a..."

Ben immediately went silent when he saw Judy giving a very annoyed and serious glare at him, reminding him for something very important thing right now. Ben jumped off Judy's arms and kneeled down, clearing his throat upon realizing that he was yelling again and remembering that they weren't alone in the jungle.

"Oh, sorry! Because of the pirates nearby... we gotta be quiet." Ben whispered and hugged Judy again as gratitude for taking him with her and started to nuzzle his head againt's Judy's head's right side, much to her annoyance and disgust, because of feeling yak's dirty hand pressing against her left cheek and his dirty, fetid of sweat and fly-filled hair wrapping around of her faces and ears... plus, smelling the yak's disgusting scent of the sweat, which was floating all around in the air at the yak's presence, made her almost feel sick.

"Don't call me cute. And please, CAN... YOU... STOP... TOUCHING ME?!" Judy insisted with the serious tone.

"Okay, okay, okay. No touching nor talking. You're the boss here, Old Ben got it." Yak said let go of Judy.

"OK. Now, l think that we should go that way..." Judy said and started to walk to the another direction, until yak unexpectedly grabbed from her wrist and pulled her back.

"One thing yet, listen. Before we go out on our big search..." Ben said as he made air quotes with his fingers "...um, would you mind if we make a quick pit stop at Old Ben's place?" Ben added as he moved some vegetation aside to reveal to Judy the way to "his place" behind the bushes.

"He-he-he-he! It's kind of urgent." Ben said, standing as if he had a desperate need to "visit a toilet."

Judy knew, too well, what Ben was meaning and did not want to know any more. She actually didn't care of it at the moment.

Judy peeked from behind of the bushes to look the place what Ben was showing at her.

Ben's place was the large cave in the large and grinning skull-like rock beneath of the waterfall, located a short distance away from them in the another side of the open area and covered by the centuries jungle vegetation.

Ben even took Judy to check his cave from closer and allowed Judy to check inside through of the skull's mouth and its craggy lines of teeth while he himself entered in to have his urgent visit a toilet.

The gave seemed to be spacious enough to accommodate all of them and because it was in the top of the hilly soil, the cave was not only the perfect camp place but also in the perfect defense position and the waterfall's loud and rumbling sound would cover all their voices from outside world.

"Ben, I think that you just solved by problem!" Judy congratulated the yak, a wide smile appearing on her face as fortune shined down on her and all of them.

Now when the task; scout ahead for the place to hide, was done thanks to unexpected help from Ben, Judy had to go back to find the others and take them to the gave.

She turned around to leave, only to be stopped by Ben, who had just done with his urgent visit and returned to the cave's entrance.

"Wow! Where are you going? You just came here to visit." Ben asked with confusion about of Judy leaving so soon.

Judy shaked his hand out of her way, turning briefly to Ben to explain her sudden departure to him, with the annoyed look in her eyes.

"In the jungle are the rest of my comrades waiting for me to return. As I told you Ben, I've sent here to find for me and my friends the perfect place to hide, where we can make our camp, recover, make our stand against the pirates and plan our next move, like your cave. It's perfect for all of us. Now I gotta find them and bring them here." Judy said and tried to keep walking, until she was once again stopped by Ben.

"You mean those guys that Old Ben saw coming ashore there to the west-side of the laggoon a couple of hours ago, who were led by the upstanding- but, as the rumours says, cunning- and dishonest-looking peg-legged red fox? Well, Old Ben does not know about you but they were clearly the pirates in Old Ben, Presumably the captain Flint's crew members." Old Ben said.

Judy sighed in annoyance, because the explanations were gonna wasting her time and the day was turning to night, so she had to find the others and get back to this cave before the night falls.

However, she knew that if she does not explain this to Ben, she'll never get to find the others before the nightfall.

"No, I don't mean them as my comrades. They are the pirates I'm running for. My friends and comrades are waiting for my return in the direction from where I came from before I crossed paths with you. They're honest sailors, good, honest and trusted mammals." Judy explained.

However, Ben was still suspicious about this.

"Good? Honest? Even a trusted, Juicy says? Well, they all came from the same pirate ship, so also they have to be Flint's men as well." Ben said with the stubborn tone. "And Old Ben is not gonna bring any pirate in Old Ben's cave, Juicy."

By the great annoyance of this yak's misconstruction, Judy grabbed with her paws from her ears and pulled them down grinding her teeth in near rage. How hard it was to explain to one pea-brained yak the one single thing.

However, Judy managed hardly to keep her cool and tried another way to explain.

"And what makes you think that my friends are also Flint's men, Ben?" Judy asked, trying to keep her impatience and cool under control.

"Well, because this rock is quite near the shore and from the top of it is able to see to the laggoon, Old Ben saw his ship under the pirates nasty black skull flag sailing and floating in the lagoon in this morning and the boats heading away from the ship towards the ashore full of pirate-looking crew members. So Old Ben assumed that one old captain Flint had finally returned after all these decades since his mysterious disappearance and leaving me here alone for decades." Ben explained.

Even for once, Judy had to admit with the nod that Ben's assumptions had the point, because none else but captain Flint himself knew even the entire island's existence, so there was not hope for anyone being marooned on this island that anyone is coming for you.

However, Judy had to explain some facts to the yak.

"And what you think then about me, as I'm from the same ship? Or what did you think about me from the beginning?" Judy asked.

"Castaway rabbit on her way here, runaway escaped from under of Flint's wings or the one who could help me finally off this island." Ben said, shrugging his shoulders uncertain of that that did he answered correctly to Judy's quetion.

Judy let out a light snort of hidden frustration, even though she knew that at the moment she was indeed both castaway and runaway as Ben guessed, but heavily, for the reason, unable to help him off this island.

"I believe, Ben, that you have made the light misunderstanding. That ship floating in the laggoon is Zoopaniola, the ship in which I was as the cabin bunny while sailing from afar all the way here. The ship is not Flint's because Flint is, as you said, disappeared or even dead." Judy calmly explained, hoping for Ben to finally realize it.

"Then why there's the large ship floating in the laggoon, with the black pirate flag in the top of the main mast and full of the nasty pirates? If you ask from Old Ben Probably miserable remains from Flint's old crew, I guess." Ben asked.

Judy, however, shook her head in disagreement.

"No, some different pirates let by the same peg-legged red fox you saw on the ashore, called with the name Nick John Wilder. They tricked all of us throughout the journey and plotted mutiny against us, which they carried out this morning."

Me and my friends managed barely to escape from the ship, but our captain wounded in the process from the massive cannon fire. And now we've been hunted by them. That's why we need the place to hide from them and recover from the very narrow escape from their claws." Judy explained.

Ben nodded as a sign that he got it, even though Judy expected that yak probably forget anything in the seconds just like he did with the remembering something about Flint's treasure.

However, there was still a little bit of uncertainty and suspicion left in Ben.

"You said them to be honest and trustworthy, right? Could you explain to Old Ben that how honest and trustworthy your friends are?" Ben asked.

Judy snorted in annoyance, but quickly gave up because protesting back would do nothing else but waste more precious time.

She, of course, realized that even if Ben had longed other mammals to talk for so long, he seemed to be cautious with regard to the pirate-like and other kind of strangers before he learned to know them better. It was just like he had been harassed and bullied by the other captain Flint's crew members while sailing with him.

However, Judy had much more important things to do than to guess the details of Ben's past.

"Ben, look, I have no time to explain the details of my friends' honesty and reliability. This is wasting my time and the day is turning soon into the night, which would make finding my friends waiting for me out there more difficult, so I have to find them and get them here before the pirates find them before me and before the nightfall, leading to the possibility of me to get lost in the dark jungle with no chance to find my friends from completely to me foreign jungle at night time. That's why I need you as a guide for me and all of us, because you live in this area and you probably know the area much better than me. Then you can see for yourself to see how honest and trustworthy my friends really are, well, at least most of them with the exception for a "certain one," and learn to know them better by yourself as you did with me back in the jungle, as soon as they and all that we have been able to save have been brought to safety to your cave."

"And if you help us to fend off against those pirates and retake our ship back from them, even though I do not even know how, as well as our original purpose/reason to our presence in here, we can take you with us then as soon as the purpose of our voyage is completed. What you say?"

Judy hoped for Ben to simply answering "yes" but, much to her annoyance, Ben decided to take ten minutes more to think about it.

However, it took twenty-five minutes for Ben to think about what Judy had just offered.

Judy could not help but much to her annoyance only wait and hope that Ben would not have a negative reply. She had relied on the fact that Ben, after being so long on the island alone, without any kind of company except hopeless hope to get off the island, would not reject such of well-meaning offer due to the fear of being harassed by the pirates yet again.

Soon after half an hour had passed, Judy started to feel that this was both useless and hopeless and started to walk away towards the jungle, about to go to find and retrieve her friends from the jungle to the cave all by herself as Ben did not seemed to be helpful.

However, before Judy managed to disappear into the jungle vegetation, she felt yak-sized hand being landed and its fingers being wrapped around of her left shoulter.

It was Ben's hand.

Ben turned Judy gently around to look at her, wanting her to listen what he had to say.

"Hmm, Old Ben senses your apparent deep concern for your friends and for their safety from your persecutors in your big bunny eyes. Plus, Old Ben sees also that you're going to a completely different direction, directly to the laggoon's east-side instead of going to the west-side, where Old Ben saw the pirate-looking mammals coming ashore. And yet one of your friends was hurt from the cannonfire. Is Old Ben right?"

Judy nodded and was about to turn, but was quickly grabbed from her shoulder by Ben and turned back to look at him so he can finish.

"And Old Ven senses that you're worried that the pirates will find them before you. Is Old Ben right?"

Judy nodded again, growing impatient by the impulsion to put aside this chitchat and finally go to look for her friends.

"Old Ben says this directly that because they as well as you do not know this jungle better than Old Ben does, it is impossible for them because it is impossible for you too to find your friends in middle of nowhere, particularly at night. This is why you need a guide to guide you through to you completely foreign area, where you can easily get lost, particularly at night, to find your friends... and you need to find your friends and bring them here to safety before the nightfall so bad. Is Old Ben right?"

Judy rolled her eyes and snorted out of frustration. Ben has probably the most fastest memory loss of all, because she herself had said all this to him a moment ago... and he had forgot all of it in minutes or seconds.

"Yeah, and there we have "The yak who has the memory of the elephant." Judy mumbled quietly and sarcastically.

But to her relief, as Ben opened his mouth...

"Then, let's go get them." Ben said, much to Judy's relief, even though she had still sarcastic and annoyed feelings towards Ben's "elephant memory."

* * *

 **I hope that all readers enjoyed this chapter.  
Eighth chapter is on its way and soon out.  
** **See ya soon!  
**  
 **Surprised?**  
 **Zootopian "naked" yak YAX in the role of B.E.N, who's personality is the mix with the BENs of Treasure Planet and** **Treasure Island (1950) with the** **sensitive memory loss like Dory from Finding Nemo/Dory films (even though I've never seen the sequel of Finding Nemo.)**


	8. Chapter 8: Bargain for the Map

**HELLO TO ALL CURRENT AND UPCOMING FANS AND FOLLOWERS OF TREASURE TROPOLIS!** **  
Here we are once again, my friends, a new chapter of my TREASURE TROPOLIS is now complete and out.**  
 **I hope that you enjoy it.**

* * *

With Ben's guide, Judy led Otterton, Susan, Leodore ans the rest of the survived crew to Ben's cave, where they would hold their defense position against the pirates stalking in the jungle.

Tiger soldiers, Fabrienne and Peter gathered all gunpowder and muskets they had left near the mouth of the cave while Baggy, Claw and White Fang and the wolf soldiers gathered all their remaining food, water and other useful stuff to deep into the cave while Jack took the first watch from the "eye-hole" of the cave, to where was leading the way in the left side of the cave watched from the dead end of the cave.

Well, even though the cave was even if the cave was sheltered, the decor was far from worthy of praise.

There was a very big mess.

There was the big piece of the thick mast and sail acting as a tent for Ben and there was dozens, even hundreds, rotten pieces of half or completely smashed wooden boxes and barrels everywhere on the cave's floor. There was also dozens empty bottles of rum, rusty containers and half-decayed barrels filled with all kinds of small ship stuff, telescopes, rusty weapons, spoiled books, a dirty tableware and navigation equipment, or rotten food.

There was also some stuff from the ships, like the rotten shrouds, crown's nests, figureheads, half-rotten longboats, the ship's helms and lanterns... even some rusty cannons and one anchor.

There was also few hand-made spears leaning against the wall and dusty the piles of gnawed bones in the corner of the cave, telling to Judy than yak had probably either voluntarily ort forced to eat some meat during of living on the island despite the fact that yaks are more likely vegetarians.

"Uh, pardon all this mess, people." Ben apologized from his guests as they entered to the cave.

"You'd think in the several decades Old Ben would've dusted his cave a little more often… but, you know, Old Ben doesn't have a much visitors visiting in Old Ben's cave, so what's the point of cleaning."

"And, as you see, Old Ben has a bit all kinds of stuff collected over the decades during of being trapped in here, Old Ben has spent his time of making a small exploration trips on the beach... and to be honest, when Old Ben crosses paths with the shipwrecked boats, there's always a big temptation to check the shipwrecked boats completely through while searching and collecting a bit all kinds of new stuff." Ben explained as he showed some of things from what he called as his "collection" like the chessboard with the chess pieces set in the order, which Ben immediately messed again by tossing the board aside and took from somewhere a some dirty "and stinky" pants.

All of them were quite grateful for Ben's hospitality, except Leodore, who was disgusted by this place, which smelled like the rotten food, flies and yak's fetid fur.

In fact, Leodore was the first one of all of them who immediately refused to believe Judy's reports about Ben and his sheltered cave, claiming rudely that all of it was just Judy's new childish imagination to get some attention and to show to the others of herself being trustworthy rabbit and even useful in some task given to her after two failed tasks, which failures Leodore still sstubbornly believed to be completely Judy's fault.

Otterton, however, was fiercely against Leodore's claims declaring that he trusted and believed Judy and was ready to follow her to the place she had found with her new mysterious friend, as well as Susan and the rest of the crew, even Leodore's own soldiers, much to Leodore's annoyance.

Leodore was also very skeptical and prejudiced towards Ben, calling coldly the yak as nothing more than crazy savage and unworthy for their trust. Leodore even coldly claimed Ben to be one of the pirates who was only trying to lead them to the paws of the other pirates, hurting the yak's feelings.

Due to such of claim and prejudice, Leodore had even tried to finish of Ben with the single shot with the pistol in between of the yak's eyes... leading both Judy and Otterton to stand for the yak, fiercely defending Ben by claiming that as well as they have, Ben also had too strong dislike towards the pirates to be one of those bilge rats and that Ben was more than just useful companion and very important guide for them in their currently suspended search for the treasure, because Ben had spent most of his life being trapped in this island so he knew the island better than anyone else.

With the great reluctance, Leodore had pulled himself out from his intention to kill Ben, but secretly vowed to himself that if that "wild savage," as he called Ben, even tried to anything treacherous towards them in any single way... he will kill him without backing off this time... and also kill anyone who stood on his way. That's why Leodore nearly hoped that Judy would stand for the yak yet again.

After all their remaining staff was in save and secured, the crew members started to move the still complete boxes and barrels, boats, crown's nests, cannons and the large pieces from the ship's flanks to create the barricade against the cave's lower "jaws" stone teeth to make the doubled cover against the pirates firepower for the possibly upcoming attack upon of them.

Ben then spotted among of his guests Dr. Otterton, who helped Susan inside of the cave by carrying her in his arms, due to her injuries had made it to her a bit painful and excruciating to walk. And after being in save in the cave, Otterton put her down and placed Susan's head to rest against the rock in the floor.

While Judy had been gone in searching for the shelter for them, Otterton and checked Susan's wound, finding it to be the scratch on her left side from the sharp piece of wood rocketed towards her from the cannon blast. It was painful, but not quite serious wound.

"Aw, isn't that sweet! Old Ben find old-fashioned romance so touching, don't you?" Ben said with the romance-filled tone of voice and rushed quickly to get something for the otters.

"How about drinks for the happy couple?" Ben asked while holding and offering to the otters the fresh coconut milk in the wooden cups.

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Yax, but no thanks. We're not very thirsty right now. And, uh, well, uh, we're not a couple." Otterton answered politely and quite shyly while removing his jacket and looking down at the Captain.

Susan raised her head at Otterton and gave him an gently plus interesting smile.

Following this moment from aside, Judy smiled at them warmly seeing the otters smiling at each others, hinting the fact that maybe the otters were slowly falling with each others.

And then, Judy took the look at the ceiling of the cave and spotted something very interesting.

"Hey, Doc. Take the look at this." Judy said, pointing up to the ceiling with her finger, with a bit reluctant to change the subject between the otters.

There was some kind of strange scriptures and markins in the ceiling and even in the walls of the inside of the cave.

"Well, well, well. Look at this. Quite interesting markings. They're written in the same language like the ones on the map. I suspect these are the hieroglyphic remnants of an ancient culture of zooztecs." Otterton said as he observed the scriptures.

Also Judy looked up at the ceiling with the curious interesting of the markins, although she had not a clue what the writings were telling to them. If she had paid more attention to these things in school, she perhaps could have translated the scriptures in their language and to find out the meaning of the scriptures

"All of you, get ready!" Susan suddenly shouted, snapping Judy out of her thoughs and Susan's loud and serious toned voice got the attention of the crew members, soldiers and Judy.

"Stop anyone who tries to approach." Susan said to the crew, until she winced and leaned back against the rock in pain. Otterton made a pillow for her out of his jacket and placed it behind of Susan's head.

"Captain, listen to me. That scratch wasn't bad but it's still painfull and needs time to heal. So, stop giving orders for a few milliseconds and lie still. You need some rest." Otterton said.

"Very forceful, Doctor. Go on, doctor dear. Say something else," Susan urged him with the warm smile.

Judy could not help but smile again warmly when she looked at these two otter, who shared the common smile.

Suddenly, Ben was on the edge of the entrance of the cave, pointing down of the hill with his finger and called the.

"Hey look! There's some more of your buddies!" Ben exclaimed.

Judy quickly rushed to the entrance of the cave and looked down to the feets of the hill. there was standing a small group of pirates led by Vincent the grizzly and Mabaya the elephant. With him were Mr. Redfur, Finnick, Duke Veaselton, polar bear, raccoons, badger, woodchuck, female cheetah, rhino, wild boar, spotted hyena, crocodile, jackal, cape dog, leopard, hippo and lion armed to teeth.

"Hey, fellas! We're over here, fellas!" Ben hollered and started to wave his arms to get these "buddies" attention at him, probably believing that they were the same side as his guests and were at the moment searching for them, much to Judy's annoyance.

"YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME! HE EVEN FORGOTTED THAT ONE IN THE SHORT PERIOD OF TIME?!" Judy loudly exclaimed with the tone of disbelief and annoyance at Ben's slipping mind.

The pirates, who probably hadn't known where Judy and the crew where hiding until Ben thoughtlessly gave away their position to them, immediately started shooting at him.

"Get cover, you stupid yak!" Judy yelled and quickly pulled yak from the entrance... out from the fire pain.

Judy started to return the fire at the pirates and Fabrienne, Peter, Jack, Claw, White Fang, Baggy and Leodore's soldiers joined to her.

Even Susan took part of the fire fight ignoring Otterton's advices to stay still and stay out of this. But Susan did not wanted to look a weak and coward while her crew was fighting against the invading pirates. However, Otterton took as well part of the fight and started to shoot with the musket at the pirates... but stayed close of Susan to make sure she doesn't hurt herself during the fight.

Only Leodore rushed deeper and jumped into the cover, hiding cowardly inside of the one of the rotten crown's nests.

Having the covers against the fire from the fallen logs, pits, hillocks and the rocks all around of the hill, the pirates slowly approached the cave's entrance, shooting everyone in the cave.

"Kill them! Kill their captain!" Vincent yelled to the men, shooting at the cave's defenders with his pistols and killed Claw the cougar next of Otterton and Susan with the accurate and direct shot in the head.

"You can't hide there, cowards! Nor run away!" Raccoon pirates yelled mockingly at them, shooting at them with his pistols.

The bullets were bouncing off everywhere in the rocks near of entrance of the cave and in the barricade's rotten wood, causing some of the defenders to take cover, which allowed the pirates to get closer and closer of the entrance.

But this hasty move closer also made them as easy targets for the defenders. The hippo pirate got shot to the chest from Judy's pistol and caused him to fall onto the badger pirate, cutting off his attack. The badger pirate hissed and snorted in annoyance when he tried to get out from under the dead hippo's heavy weight.

Also Jackal pirate got shot in the head from the tiger soldier's musket, but the jackal pirate was able to pull the trigger by the reflexes in his dying moments and fire the one last shot towards the cave before the jackal went to limp and fell to the ground. With the luck, the jackal's shot hit one of the wolf guards, who was firing at the pirates next to the recently jackal killed tiger, to the throat, killing the wolf soldier slowly by choking him to his own blood.

Also the leopard pirate also got hit from Otterton's musket seemingly to his chest as he showed up from behind of the rock and he fell over to the ground.

The blunderbuss-like guns that Mabaya was wielding and using against the defenders of the cave, were more likely the cannons ripped off from their wooden stands.

Mabaya shot with the two large cannon balls, from which the first one broke one of the cave's stone teeth from the stony skull's upper jaw, sending several stone chips to fly around the entrance, disturbing the defense by disturbing the defenders eyes and forcing them to get cover, and snapped the mast inside of the cave in half... destroying Ben's tent.

The another cannon ball flied between of two stony teeth of the skull's lower jaw, breaking the stone teeth in half and smashing the rotten longboat, which was set to lean against the teeth. Such of blast tossed rouchly Fabienne and White Fang over to the stone floor and the from the blast flying wooden splinters and small rocky chips nearly got both of them permanently blinded.

Lucky for them, their eyes were still unharmed, but couldn't say the same thing about their faces. With the speed of the flying cannonball flying pieces of wood and chips of stone had caused the multiple wounds on them in the area of their faces, arms and their upper body... making the snow leopard and the white wolf to hiss and moan loudly in pain.

Two wounded from their own forced Otterton to pause the fight and rush to their aid to check how bad the injuries were and how he was able to treat them.

With the small number of the defenders left to defend the entrance of the cave, the pirates gained the upper hand with their numbers and owerwhelming fire-power.

The lion pirate managed to het too close to Susan and started to swing his sword towards her aiming the blade to her neck. Susan tried to defend herself against the lion's brutal attacks by blocking them with her musket, until the lion managed to knock with his sword the musket off of Susan's paws. But enraged about failing to slash Susan's thoart with the sword, the lion then tried to his claws.

Lion's claws tore Susan's blue captain jacket into shreds but were unable to physically harm her as Susan had barely managed to dodge the attack, gritting her teeth as she tried at the same time to ignore the pain in her left side. The lion tried to slash Susan with his claws again but he was unexpectedly killed with the headshot by Otterton's pistol, before he continued quickly checking and treating Fabienne's and White Fang's wounds.

The polar bear pirate get as well too close of the entrance of the cave and shot one of the tiger soldiers with the pistol to the head and punched with his clawed paw Peter aside.

At the same time, the leopard pirate, who the cave's defenders though to get killed already with the shot in the chest but had got shot to his right shoulder instead crawled up from the place to where he had fell over after getting shot. Wounded and enraged, the leopard sneaked close of the entrance of the cave and attacked unexpectedly to Baggy's defense position. As Baggy was about to fire, the leopard grabbed from him his uploaded musket and slashed Baggy's throat open with his claws, tossing the blood to Judy's face, blinding her temporality.

Baggy went in the seconds to limp and fell over to the stone floor, slowly chocking into his own blood which filled his throat and mouth preventing him to breath. And in the seconds, Baggy eventually stopped to suffering and violently convulsing in pain and lack of oxygen, and then slumped dead on the floor.

Leopard then immediately attacked Otterton after he was returning to his post after treating Fabinne's and White Fang's wounds so far as he could, knocking the hasty otter doctor down by hitting him in the head with the end of the musket and then attacked both Susan and Judy.

The leopard aimed at Susan and Judy with the blunderbuss from too small distance away from them, then pulled teh trigger and fired at them. The bullet passed Judy leaving her unharmed, but the bullet went through of Susan's right arm sunk into Susan's left side, coming out right from the point where was Susan's wound received from the pieces of wood tossed by the cannon blast, wounding her badly and causing Susan to scream in the strong wave of pain.

"NO!" Both Judy and especially Otterton yelled in horror of the sight, which caused Otterton to swung with the sword to the leopard's head in revenge. Wounding badly the pirate's left eye and forcing him to retreat. Otterton then rushed to Susan's side and carried the wounded captain to the safety.

His and Susan's defense positions were then replaced by Fabienne and White Fang, who began again to shoot the pirates in retaliation for their suffered and still but slightly bleeding wounds on their faces.

Meanwhile, shortly after Susan was attacked and critically wounded by leopard and after the leopard was wounded by vengeful Otterton and forced to retreat, Croco the crocodile suddenly showed up snapping his large jaws at the defenders. Then Croco spotted Judy right front of him, still wiping Baggy's blood off her eyes.

Croco licked his lips and unexpectedly to Judy, Croco grabbed Judy from her shirt and lift her from the groud.

"Oh, you bunnies are just mouthful, but still so delicious!" Croco said and lift Judy above of his head and opened his mouth widely to swallow in his grip struggling Judy as whole.

"NO!" Judy cried as she watched down to Croco's dark-red throat leading to the darkness of inside of him.

Croco then let go of Judy's shirt, letting her run down his slimy and slipping tongue towards the throat... to her death. Which is really only once in the life experienced and veeeery unpleased way to die in the crocodile's stinking stomach acids.

Luckily, before being grabbed and nearly being eaten by Croco, Judy had managed to get the blunderbuss from somewhere and with no time to think that from where she had picked it and before she managed to enter deeper in Croco's throat to his dark-red, slimy and quite narrow esophagus, Judy quickly placed the weapon between of Croco's jaws, which prevented her from slipping inside to Croco's throat. After this, Judy remained to hang in very close of the edge of the dark hole leading down to the esophagus, which was barely spacious enough for Judy to slip down without even physically touch the other walls of the esophagus, holding from the weapon for her dear life.

"UGH! NICE BREATH!" Judy said exclaimed with the deep disgust after she had sniffed Croco's breath among his dirty teeth and the stench of his stomach acids and recoiled her nose to prevent herself from sniffing it any more.

"TODAY'S NOT BUNNY FOR DINNER, PUNK!" Judy shouted inside of Croco's mouth and started to climb up to get herself out from the crocodile's wide mouth and throat.

Croco then noticed that something was wrong with eating one certain bunny, as he felt the bunny hanging for her dear life inside of his throat and even trying to climb up from his mouth.

Not willing to lose his pray and oddly unable to close his jaws, Croco started to savagely shake his head from the side to another to disrupt her focus on getting out from Croco's mouth, which partially worked, causing Judy nearly to slip into his throat again and leaving her to hang on from the blunderbuss with one paw.

And every time when Croco tried to shake his head to upwards and briefly losened the grip of his jaws to get the strange thing keeping his jaws away from each others and to get Judy to completely fall into his throat, Judy quickly grabbed from the blunderbuss with two paws and quickly moved it to forward and placed it back between of Croco's jaws. Between of the strong force of the crocodile's jaws, Judy used it as the support to pull herself out from the crocodile's mouth.

However, Croco then started to push with the brute force his jaws together, much to Judy's shock and horror just when she finally got herself out from the throat.

The situation went from bad to worse for Judy as Croco raised a bit his head to a sharp angle enough to nearly causing Judy to slip off from the crocodile's slimy and slippery tongue back into his throat and through his esophagus to his belly.

Plus, Judy spotted much to her horror that also the blunderbuss, her only support for herself to pull herself out from the throat and to prevent the crocodile to close his jaws, was about to snap in half under of the crocodile's brutal bite force.

Of course she had to pick a one half-rotten blunderbuss from Ben's collection instead of the weapon in good condition! And very soon as the weapon snaps in half, she would be doomed to fall into Croco's throat and down into esophagus until his belly full of stomach acids... and she wasn't even close to grab from Croco's teeth for support.

"NO!" Judy screamed. She would never believed that her very first adventure would end as the lunch for the crocodile.

Captain Flint jumped angrily snarling and screaming on the crocodile's head the long stick in his hands and started to smack with it the crocodile's snout and the areas of his eyes to prevent the green reptile predator from swallowing Judy... but because of Croco's thick skin, the hits from Flint's were like the couple mosquito bites, which Croco strongly ignored... not even bothered to shake the monkey off from him but stubbornly continued devouring Judy.

But before the weapon managed to snap in half and send Judy to her doom, Ben, having witnessed everything from aside and remembering his own dislike towards the pirates, quickly rushed his head ahead towards Croco while his focus was still on eating Judy and rammed roughly the crocodile down, causing him to spit... or vomit... the slime covered Judy out from his mouth into the cave while he fell over and rolled down the hill from Ben's pushing force, taking at the same time attacking spotted hyena, cape dog and from the cave retreating leopard down with him.

The predator pirates rolled roughly down the hill, hitting their heads into the ground, logs and rocks, until they roughly collided against the old, hollow and quite strong tree trunk with theiur heads ahead. The collision between of the pirates and the trunk knocked all the predator pirates into unconscious, leaving hyena, cape dog and leopard trapped under of the heavy crocodile's weight.

"Nobody touches Old Ben's new buddy Juicy!" Ben shouted after the crocodile while Judy crawled away from the entrance of the cave, covered by the spittle from Croco's mouth.

"" before he pulled himself into the cover as a new batch of the bullets of muskets and pistols flied towards the cave entrance, flying all around after hitting to the stony teeth and the wooden barracks.

Leodore's remaining soldiers were meanwhile in the close compat by the swords, and the muskets, with the some pirates, who were managed to reach to the entrance without getting hit from the shots coming from the defenders. However, because the tiger and the wolf soldiers opponents happened to be more smaller than them; female cheetah pirate and wild boar pirate fighting with the tiger soldier and the badger pirate, who had managed to pull himself out from the dead hippo pirate's weight, was fighting with the wolf soldier.

The wolf soldier defeated the badger with ease due to their size and the different levels of strength. Wolf soldier needed to just block the badger pirate's straight strike with the ax with his sword and slip the blade under of the ax blade. Pulling his blade to aside with both of his paws, the wolf ripped the ax from the badger's paws... and as the badger pirate, now aware of the fact that he was about to lose this fight, tried to back off until the wolf soldier delivered the fierce kick with his booted leg stright the badger's face, sending him roughly roll down the hill from the force of the kick.

Meanwhile, fighting one soldier against two pirates wasn't difficult for the tiger soldier. After delivering the heavy and fierce punch straight to the boar pirate's face and getting the boar momentraily out of the way, the tiger soldier turned to the female cheetah pirate and with the one fast and hard sword swing against the cheetah's own sword, he tossed the cheetahaside towards the stony corner of the skull's mouth, causing the cheetah to hit her head into one of the stony teeth in the upper jaw and roughly being tossed on her back to the ground... a bit dizzy and rubbing with her paw her head's sore spot from the hit, hissing in pain.

The wilde boar pirate was stunned from the such of strength of that tiger, which caused him to drop his weapons and to slowly pull back the step by step, pleading for mercy from the tiger soldier. However, the tiger soldier ignored the boar pirate's pleadings for mercy but picked from the ground his musked up into the batting position and with the another hard swing, the tiger soldier hit with the heavier end of his musked to the right side of the boar's head... nearly knocking him to unconscious and sending him to fall over onto the away from the cave's entrance crawling cheetah... much to cheetah's annoyance... and causing the cheetah pirate to hiss in disgust and to recoil her snout soon after feeling the boar's messy chest hair, his fat and wet from the sweat body and the heavy weight of the boar on her slender and neat-furred body and the strong smell of sweat in her nose.

"Get off me, you filthy boar!" The cheetah hissed while trying to pull herself out from the boar's weight.

After the White Fang and Jack managed to kill together the polar bear pirate with their musket's bayonets by stabbing them into the white bear pirates' heart and the rest of the survived soldiers shot the several warning shots aiming to near of the pirates heads and legs, all the survived pirates were half-broken and forced to retreated into the jungle.

Mabaya covered his fellow crew members tactical retreat by shooting at the cave's entrance with his cannons, using them like blunderbuss and smashing with the cannonballs the area of the cave's entrance... forcing the survived defenders to halt their fire and get cover to avoid to get shredded by the rocketing sharp pieces of the half-rotten wood.

From all attackers, only Vincent, Mabaya, Redfur, Finnick, female cheetah (after pulling herself out from under of the boar's weight), raccoons, woodchuck, badger and the rhino stayed behind to cover their wounded fellow pirates retreat by shooting at the defenders in the cave as Peter, Jack, White Fang and the two remaining soldiers fired back at them.

"Stop wasting your fire!" Suddenly shouted the familiar voice from the woods.

The pirates, with the reluctance and greatly disappointed, stopped the firing the cave at once and immediately retreated back into the jungle, dissappearing among the palm trees.

The defenders of the cave had gained the narrow defensive victory over the pirates, but there was still more of them alive out there... more than what the defenders had to defend the cave at the moment... and with the much larger arsenal of the gun powder and firepower.

"Get the wounded ones far away from the cave's entrance and out of the sight, quickly!" White Fang shouted to the survived crew members after the firefight was temporarily over.

Fabienne, who was wounded from her leg after that polar bear pirate before his dead in the paws/hands of Jack and Peter had made a painful clawmarks to her leg, hampering the moving her leg, was placed next to Susan by the tiger and the wolf soldiers.

The remaining wolf soldier had also wounded by getting the bad slash from one of the pirates knife into his temple and gunshot to his right shoulder while they were retreating. The wolf sat down against the cave's wall holding his shoulder and gritting his teeth in pain. The tiger soldier had also got some bruises and the area of his right eye was black from the punch given to him by the rhino pirate who had caught him off guard during the battle.

Otterton tried to do the best he was able to do to treat their wounds, even though he was mostly concerned for Susan's well-being, because she had wounded from all of them more badly in the battle.

Because they could not in any way waste vital water to wash themselves, except for the wounds of the wounded, Judy, who was still covered by the slime from Croco's mouth and the stench from Croco's stomach acids, Judy rather decided to sacrifice her own part of the water to wash herself from the slime and stench than to let them be and remain slimy and stinky bunny the rest of the voyage... against the protests from the others.

"Do not complain to me unless you want your noses to suffer from the stench of the stomach acids, guys! At least you guys did not need to visit in that crocodile's mouth! And I'm not gonna let my nose to suffer from the smell not caused by sweat." Judy fired back at her friends with the annoyance in her voice as she wiped herself to dry and clean with the dirty piece of fabric found from Ben's collection.

Meanwhile, Jack, Peter and White Fang were quickly reloading their weapons for the new possible pirates attack. And because Judy was one of those still able to fight, she quickly reloaded her pistols and get ready in her position.

"Hello, up there!" They suddenly heard the familiar voice yet again... and this time calling for them.

Judy, Jack, White Fang and Peter peeked carefully, and the weapons reloaded and ready to fire, over of their cover to check outside of the cave and they spotted the single figure slowly walking towards them.

It was Wilder.

Wilder limped towards the cave's entrance leaning to his crutch as support, still due to that hit Judy gave to him back in the ship's galley before this entire mutiny, waving a make-shift white flag in the air above of his head and called for Judy with the friendly yet nervous tone of voice.

"Carrots? Are you there? I apologize for such of cowardly attack upon you, but if you're still alive, I want you to hear me... lf it's all right with the captain, l'd like a short word with ya. No tricks, just a little palaver." Wilder called.

Judy took immediately skeptical expression on her face. After all of what had already happened between of them since she had overheard the fox emotionally back-stabbing words about her back in the galley, it was more than just hard to believe that Wilder really meant what he had just said.

White Fang raised her musket and aimed with it at Wilder with the intention to shoot the fox in the head but Judy grabbed from her musket and shook her head as sign of "Wait."

Leodore, who was still cowardly hiding behind of the barrel, happened to overhear Wilder's calls for Judy to the parley under the peace flag, and immediately targeted his rude preconceptions upon the one certain bunny in the cave.

"So, that traitor wants you and only you?! Then, go ahead, brat! Just go! If he wants only you, there is no point to keep you safe in here and get all of us killed by protecting the one single worthless bunny!" Leodore roared coldly to Judy behind of the barrel in panic, which Judy just ignored as her thoughts were completely focused on that fox and to all of those moments she had spent with that fox during the voyage since their first met back in the harbor before the departing to this voyage... until his betrayal in the galley.

"How dare you say something like that, the governor?" White Fang snarled loudly at the governor with the disgusted tone.

"That "worthless bunny" saved at least our lives back in the ship, remember?!" Fabienne roared at the governor while Otterton was bandaging her wound in her leg with all the few bandages he had with him at the moment, during of which Otterton once caused accidentally the snow leopard to lightly hiss in pain.

"Just because we got the luck." Leodore stubbornly growled back at the snow leopard.

"Well, Carrots? I'm waiting for your answer? Be sensible and no more mammals needs to die in the needless firefight as has already happened!" Wilder called again while still slowly and carefully limping towards the cave.

Judy turned to Otterton and Susan with a bit hesitating expression on her face, until she caught something very unexpected into her ears.

"C'mon, Carrots! You're bringing the great disappointing to your shipmate. All I want to negotiate with you is just setting the things right, put aside the hostiles between of us and bargain for the map."

Hearing this, Judy's eyes widened and her ears jumped upright. Judy started to wonder that was she now imagining or did she just heard correctly those last words of Wilder.

'Bargain for the map?!'

However, unlike Judy, the others didn't realized the meanings of Wilder's last words due to being filled with the anger and distrust towards that fox.

"First he wanted to kill us, and now he comes to bargain for the map, doubtless. That treacherous... insidious...!" Susan snarled while trying to sit up before she grunted again in pain and fell back against the rock.

"Stay down, captain!" Otterton said seriously, reminding her that she needed to take it easy because of her very bad wounds.

"That untrustworthy fox wants none of us alive as he tried back in the ship. He only wants the take the map from us even though we do not have it and…" Jack said, until Judy put her paw front of Jack's mouth cutting his words and preventing him to speak anything about the map.

"He came to bargain for the map, didn't he? Why else would they be looking for us in the jungle and recently attacked us?" Judy asked from the other fellow crew members.

Nearly all of them were found themselves dumbfounded, until Jack suddenly started hastily and even impatiently to wave his right paw in the air to get a speech turn like the school children.

Judy rolled her eyes. Only Answer without a speech turn would have been enough because they were not in school now.

"Yes, Jack?" Judy said as she pointed with her finger at the squirrel.

"Because he wants us dead?" Jack guessed.

Judy snorted and slapped her back across her face... of course Jack had to give the incorrect answer because he had already said something like that.

"No! They're looking for us instead of the treasure even though we accidentally left the map back in the ship... right in the front of Wilder's nose. He could have taken it and started to look for the treasure, but instead he is looking for us." Judy said to the others with the whispering tone.

"And that means...?" Peter asked with the confused tone.

"That means… that he thinks we still have it. And they have no idea that where it really is" Judy deducted, a smirk playing on her lips."

Judy also targeted the sly smirk at captain Flint, silently congratulating the monkey for hiding the map very well from the pirates.

This knowledge gave her hope... because that knowledge would be their the greatest advantage in their bad situation.

Judy then lowered her pistols and was about to get over their defences and move outside of the cave until Peter and Fang suddenly stopped her.

"What are you doing, bunny? He's gonna kill you if you go down there!" Peter said firmly.

"I try to buy us more time." Judy only said and jumped out from the gave. Captain Flint's eyes widened as he saw Judy leaving from the cave and quickly jumpedout himself and rushed after her.

Jack, Peter and Fang were still dumbfounded by Judy's sudden decision to go down there to negotiate with Wilder.

"And what about we? What we are supposed to do now?" Jack asked with the impatiently curious tone while looking at both Fang and Peter.

"Keep an eye on that fox. If he tries anything or if all of this happens to be the trap/ambush after all, shoot him first." White Fang said and raised her musket into the firing position, aiming at Wilder in the head and getting ready to fire while keeping her finger from the trigger.

Others followed the white wolf's example and get into their position and ready to fire if things are gonna get ugly.

After accepting Wilder's offer of truce and parley, with his own risk, Judy walked slowly and with the serious rythm towards him to the meeting place outside of the cave.

Captain Flint ran eagerly ahead of her towards Wilder.

"Ah, Flint! I wondered where you was off to this time." Wilder said with the happy tone as Captain Flint jumped onto his shoulders, nuzzling his head against Wilder's chuckling loudly and happily.

When Judy finally arrived to the meeting place in middle of the hill, Wilder sat down to the nearby rock, removed his hat from his head and stroked his right sore leg.

"Oh, this poor old leg's downright snarky since that game attack we had in the galley." Wilder chuckled heartily with the wide smile.

However, instead of the humorous expression that was on Wilder's face, there was the dead serious and mostly disappointed expression on Judy's face as she silently looked at the fox she had trusted during of the beginning and the middle-part of the voyage until the arrival on this island.

Wilder noticed Judy's expression too well.

He knew that at the moment Judy saw him now as an enemy than shipmate, and only because of what he had said about her back in the galley.

Wilder let out the deep sigh and then took regretful expression on his face, even though he didn't looked straight to Judy's eyes.

"I know why you look at me like that, Carrots, and I don't blame you for it. I definitely don't." Wilder said as he apparently ashamed of his words leaned forward and placed his elbows onto his kneels while looking down.

Wilder was briedly silent, until he opened his mouth again to speak.

"But... 'Sigh' ...whatever you heard back there. At least the part concerning you. I know you'll never believe anything of what I'm gonna to tell you now as humbly and apologetically as I can in front of you. I know that it was harshly, ruthlessly, emotionally hurtful and backstabbingly said... but in fact… I didn't mean a word of it." Wilder said gently and regretfully."

However, Judy was still looking at Wilder with the cold stare and the expression filled to full of disappointment and distrust towards that fox.

"But I had no choice, Carrots. I would back then only looked be weak in front of my own men's eyes. You must understand. You have no idea how it feels to be in the serious trouble with the bunch of those bloodthirsty, impatient and insidious idiots who were thinking that I'd gone soft. I never wanted to say anything hurtful and emotionally back-stabbing thing behind of your back, I truly never loved any of that what I said, but I had to to keep the situation under of my control, otherwise they'd have gutted us both." Wilder apologetically explained wile wrapping his clawed paws around of his bare white shirt and then pulling them back, nearly clawing his shirt into shreds as referring of what he meant about "gutting" word.

"Especially that Israel Grey. I'm sure you overheard how he planned to get me to prove to rest that have I gone soft by diging your eyes out from your head in front of me so that he would find out that could such a homicidal act break me or not. I kind of saved you from a such of way to suffer... although with the emotionally unpleasant way which started all of this in the first place." Wilder added

Bitter expression on Judy's face slightly lowered and she almost started to feel some sympathy towards that fox pirate. But it was still hard to believe that that fox was actually only trying to save himself... and her as well... from the situation to which Israel Grey placed him in the middle of his own crew back in the galley before the mutiny.

However, Judy knew that Wilder was still part of this treacherous mutiny against her and her friends and all this would still have occurred anyway even if Wilder would had not defended himself with the such of offensive way from Israel Grey's impatient wrath targeted at her and Wilder.

"But listen to me." Wilder suddenly whispered, changing the subject and went close of Judy, places his paw to the bunny's shoulder to pull her closer, so Wilder would be able to share his terms with Judy in the private airspace.

"This doesn't have to end to the needless bloodshed, Carrots. If we play our cards right, none of us needs to die and we can both walk away from this rich as the king of Zoogland himself."

Judy listened the every word of what Wilder had just said while placing herself into pensive position, moving her arms crossed and placing her left paws fingers around of her chin.

"Really?" Judy asked with the grin, but still a bit sucipious about that was she able to trust to the word of the fox... yet again.

"Yeah, ha, ha, ha, Carrots. You're starting to understand. Who needs a fight when we know that we still have the possibility of cooperation? Besides, I'm sure that none of you in the cave hiding and considerably outnumbered poor ones do not want to end to be impaled into the pikes, even less to die of starvation in the surrounded cave nor being shot as soon as you step outside from its teeth right?" Wilder asked with the sly grin.

"So, all you need to do is get me that map, and... uh... I'll order my men to lay down their arms and you can come out from the cave peacefully. None of you gets hurt, I swear that. We can usse the map to find that treasure together and an even portion of the treasure will be yours as reward for cooperation."

Chuckling heartily Wilder let go of Judy's shoulder backed off a little and stretched out his paw to Judy for shaking it as a sign that they have a agreement.

However, Judy didn't stretched out her own paw to shake Wilder's. She instead shook her lowered head after hearing Wilder's terms.

"Boy. You are really something, Wilder." Judy sighed and began to circle Wilder, while he followed her going with his eyes.

"After I overheard you saying that you put me to work myself to exhaustion so I could not be able to sniff about, right?... Well, I started to think that..."

"...were all that talking of makings of greatness in me, the light coming off my sails, even your own background story about you and your family just a joke and an attempt to gain and to fuel my trust on you, huh? Well, what a lame joke." Judy said.

"Now, you just see here, Carrots…" Wilder tried to protest but Judy rudely interrupted him, raising the tone of her voice and glaring at Wilder with the angry look.

"Well, at last in middle of all those lies and pretending you taught me a one thing, didn't you? _Stick to it. Stick to my goals_ , right? Well, even that lesson got through, Wilder and I gladly congratulate you for it, because that's exactly what I'm going to do. So as long as I have my breath within my body, I'm gonna make sure that you or none of you bilge rats never see even one DUBLOON OF MY TREASURE!" Judy said angrily

"THAT TREASURE OWNS ME THE YEARS OF SEARCHING, BY 'TUNDER!" Frustrated Wilder barked angrily, baring his canine teeth at the same time at Judy.

However, Judy wasn't frightened by the fox's sharp fangs. Far from it...

"WELL, IF YOU REALLY WANT IT SO BADLY, THEN WHY YOU DO NOT JUST GO AND TRY TO FIND IT WITHOUT MY MAP, BY 'TUNDER!" Judy screamed back under of pure rage.

Wilder let out the deep growl out from his lips, angered and frustrated that Judy had just rejected his offer or truce and cooperation.

"Was that very last word of yours, Carrots?" Wilder growled while angrily glaring at the stubborn bunny.

Judy proudly nodded at the fox, while angrily glaring at him back.

"YES! Very last word! Besides, we have the map in our grasp! So if you wretched little lobsters even consider of attacking us yet again like that, we'll burn the map to the dust rather than let you to touch it with your filthy fingers! Then we are all trapped on this island without hope to find the treasure and even less able find the way back to home without it! So it's now your you cabbage-brains turn to be sensible with us. And in addition, you're going to want to refrain from calling me 'Carrots'." Judy growled.

"Oh, so you still don't know how to pick your fights, do ya, girl?!" Wilder growled deeply and threatingly at Judy.

Not being frightened of that, Judy only narrowed her eyes and gritted her teeth while glaring at Wilder with the angry glare.

"Actually, I do and I already have, Wilder... strongly inspired by the advice you told me that night... _All the world will be your enemy_... I truly know what it really means, especially with the such of crooked and untrustworthy foxes like you." Judy fired back.

Wilder only let out the angry snort followed by the angry growl as respond.

"Very well, Fluff. Then we'll have to do this the hard way..." Wilder said and stood up to his feet, placing his hat back on his head.

"Mark my words, dumb bunny; you've got not much gunpowder and even less food and drinkable water back there in the cave to feed and defend yourself from starvation and my men, but that doesn't matter. I can wait, because I have still Zoopaniola under my command as well as its food stocks, but we will not wait forever, and my patience has its limits. With the ship, I also have its cannons and your refuge happens to be within of the cannon-range from here to the laggoon where we took and anchored the ship before beaching. So here are my options for you to decide. Either I get that map in my grasp and you all surrendered to me by dawn tomorrow, or so help me, I'LL USE THE SHIP'S CANNONS TO RELEASE UPON YOU THE VOLLEY WHICH BLASTS YOU ALL TO KINGDOM COME!" Wilder angrily, threatingly and very loudly declared, that everybody could hear it from a distance away from the meeting place.

But even under such of threat, Judy didn't showed any sign of fear to the fox. Just glared at Wilder with the deep hate.

Wilder turned around and was about to leave until he turned to Flint.

"Flint, hop to it." Wilder called, but Flint, who had witnessed the fierce argument between of Judy and Wilder from the very beginning and having witnessed with the worried look his master making to Judy such of ultimatum, hesitanted to leave with his master.

"NOW, YOU DAMNED MONKEY!" Wilder barked loudly and furiously at Flint with the murderous and nearly blood-shot eyes and the bared canine-fangs.

Flint screamed in the fear after Wilder's breakdown. Before the poor thing quickly rushed behind of Judy, trembling in fear hiding behind of Judy's shoulder from Wilder's fury.

Judy took a quick look at the poor monkey before his expression of pure hatred towards Wilder came back on her face, not being frightened of Wilder's murderous expression on his face.

'Whatta act of coward to to scare the monkey'

Wilder glared both of Judy and Flint growling in the frustrated anger.

"Oh, blast it!" Wilder loudly muttered angrily and started to walk away.

Judy angrily glared at Wilder yet momentarily, before she eventually turned around and started to walking back towards the cave.

Wilder snorted and let out the curses in frustration that the meeting didn't went well as he had hoped. But before Wilder managed to reach to the next of the palm trees and disappeared into the woods, he turned slightly back to the cave the anger and frustration still on his face but also some concern for Judy's well-being.

He felt inside of him a strong reluctance to do what he just threatened to do if his demands were not answered by the way he wished... for Judy's safety and well-being.

"You're spunky and stubborn for the bunny, Carrots. I'll grant you that. But please. You'd be sensible now and don't make me to do what I just threated to do." Wilder silently whispered and kept walk into the woods.

* * *

 **I hoped that all readers and followers enjoyed this chapter.  
Did anybody noticed the easter-egg in the form of the quote from Zootopia film I hidded in the text?  
And with that the crocodile pirate trying to devour Judy in whole, I got the inspiration from the Tick-Tock-crocodile from Peter Pan movie.**

 **My apologizes if some of you had to wait a new chapter so long.  
Ninth chapter is on its way, but it may be shorter than the previous ones.  
See ya soon.  
**


	9. Chapter 9: Using The Backdoor

**HELLO AGAIN TO ALL CURRENT AND UPCOMING FANS AND FOLLOWERS OF TREASURE TROPOLIS!**  
 **Here we are once again.**  
 **My ninth chapter of my TREASURE TROPOLIS is now out.**  
 **I hope you enjoy of of reading it... and give then the review after it.**

* * *

When the night fell upon the island, the crew inside of the cave checked out their remaining food and water supplies, as well as the amount of gunpowder and ammunition.

"There's no much food, water, gunpowder nor ammunition left... only for the day or two, but only barely." Tiger soldier reported to Leodore after cheking out the status of their supplies.

Leodore snorted loudly in frustration and peeked over his shoulder, angrilky scowling at Judy, who was kneeling next to Otterton, helping him as best as she could in checking and desperately tending badly wounded Susan.

Susan's torturing pain and her already bad condition grew worse in every minute. Otterton had all evening trying his best to get the bleeding stop, but when he had barely managed to stop the bleeding, Susan was in very poor condition due to lack of blood. She was just lying in place on the ground, weak and burning up, nearly unable to even move her limbs and her body trembled every time when the torturing pain waves run through her body.

And with the massive lack of food, water, gunpowder and ammunition, the crew was slowly starting to lose their hope to survive from this.

None of them slept, no one of them was able to sleep tonight, because none of them couldn't stop worrying about their bleak situation and the fear of the new pirate attack.

All what they were able to do, was desperately tend Susan's wounds and guard the entrance of the cave.

Leodore's patience came to an end and he angrily turned to Judy.

"You should have agree with Wilder about that offer, brat!" Leodore roared in anger, pointing at Judy with the blaming finger. "Thanks to your stubborness and pride, we're all now stuck here, halted by those pirates outside and soon we're starving ourselves to death."

Judy turned away from the otters and took immediately the scolding scolw on her eyes, targeted towards Leodore.

"You call that stubborness and pride, do you?! Huh?! I call that my own opinion and a final decision... and distrust to that fox's words! If you wanna leave here and get shot from the pirates who are possibly hiding among the trees and pushes out there, Leodore? (Judy stands up and and refers her paw towards the entrance of the cave.) "Please, be my guest!"

Judy stood on her place for while, still scowling Leodore and waiting him to take his leave and step outside of the cave.

However, Leodore did not moved a muscle to leave. He turned to the entrance of the cave and clearly and apparently hesitated to take even a one step towards the entrance of the cave. He started to wonder that what if Judy was right and that the pirates had set the ambush out there in the hill with the order to shoot anyone who dared to step outside of the cave. His hairy skin went into goose bumps about the though of get the bullet into his head or the knife to his throat, so Leodore stepped back deeper to the cave, getting far away from the entrance.

Such of act made Judy to grin triumphantly and mischievously. The "scary-cat" had given up too easily.

"No? The "scary-cat" doesn't want to go outside to catch some mouses?" Judy said quite mockingly towards Leodore.

Leodore stopped to next to the barrel, behind of which he was hiding during the battle earlier today.

"Fine, but you go to the bed without the single drop of milk, scary-cat." Judy teased, before her expression turned from the teasing look into the dead-serious look.

"At least, it's with 100% much better way to die in peace to starvation in here than to rejoin and then to be betrayed by those pirates again and then to be killed by them after the treasure is found and they find us nothing more but the needless burden for them after the discover of the treasure. I bet that they are even now, we agreed to their offer or not, they planned to put all of us into the pikes to hang as the food for the birds. Is that what you wanted?!" Judy asked firmly from Leodore.

Leodore growled deeply and turned his back to them in frustration.

Suddenly, Susan gasped loudly when a new wave of pain run through of her body starting from her bad wound in her left side.

Judy quickly snapped out from the argument with the "scary-cat" and turned back to Susan, kneeling down next to the otters as Otterton was checking Susan's situation and status.

Otterton was deeply worried about Susan's bad condition, fearing that all what he tried to treat Susan's critical wound was not enough...

...and bleak situation with the massive lack of the supplies and being trapped in the cave was more than the less comforting.

The silence was broken by Leodore, as he saw Otterton tending Susan's wound by washing it with the water to prevent the infection.

"Why you even try to save her, Dr.? Why to waste the drinkable water for her wound? She's as good as dead anyway, and once dead, she's just the dead weight and needless burden for us." Leodore loudly muttered, which deeply angered Otterton, Judy and Susan's crew, causing all of them to scowl angrily towards Leodore.

Some of them, especially Otterton and Judy, were even considering of kicking Leodore out of the cave for the food of the pirates bullets... "to waste their ammo."

"Gentlemen…" Susan whispered weakly under Otterton's care, before she gritted her teeth under a new pain wave.

"There's no… many of us left and… So, all what we have to do is… stay together and… and…" She said weakly and stuttering in her words under the suffer.

"Stay with me, Susan! Stay with me! You're not gonna die! Just stay awake!" Otterton yelled while trying to figure out to somehow to tend Susan's wounds better than with his ability of the first aid.

"Otterton… you have… wonderful eyes." Susan exclaimed, before her body slumped into limp and she lost her consciousness.

"She's suffering from the lack of blood! She is losing her consciousness!" Otterton cried in half panic and half shock, fearing for Susan's life.

"Well, don't just stand there! Help her! You gotta to do something!" Judy pleaded.

"Sew her wound or burn the wound up with the hot metal!"

"Damned, Judy! Those ideas were already visited in my mind and I would have been able to do either of them, but I haven't twine and needles and there's no nothing to make fire to burn her wound. And there ain't no way to go out there to gather some wood for the fire because of those blasted pirates waiting for us in the outside as you said. I only have a bandages and the ability of the first aid and they are not enough to save her. And you just sit there and you're useless!" Otterton shouted angrily.

Otterton was angry and frustrated, but Judy knew that Otterton wasn't angry at her for what she had just said. He was angry at himself because he couldn't help Susan as much as he wanted or would have been able to.

There was also reason for him to be angry and frustrated; because his doctor's bag containing all his medical supplies and drugs, with which he would be able to help Susan even more, were in a hurry left behind to the captain's stateroom during their narrow escape from Zoopaniola during of the mutiny.

Otterton looked just about ready to burst into tears in fear of losing Susan and deeply blaming himself for not being able to help her this further, but he barely held himself together.

Judy knew that Otterton was right. They had their swords which blades they would be able to heat but there was not good wood in the cave and going outside of the cave to search for it was too risky due to pirates and and it would be nothing but a waste of supplies to burn some of them to get fire to burn up Susan's wound.

"It's okay, Doc. It's okay." Judy said, landing her paw onto Otterton's shoulder comfortingly, earning the sad nod from the otter.

"Yeah, Doc! No worry! Juicy knows exactly how to get out of the situation like this. You did it before because of her, right? Then we'll be able to do it yet again." Ben said eagerly his voice full of hope which everybody else has nearly lost.

"So as long as Juicy is our boss in here with the such of knowledge of escaping arts, there's no need to lose our hope, no matter how grim our situation is. And as Old Ben has his faith on her, then you guys should have some faith on her too." Ben added.

After hearing this, Leodore growled silently in disgust. There's no way he was gonna take some orders from the "long-eared bunny brat" and he turned his back to them, crossing his arms.

Ben then turned to Judy, who had walked/climbed to one of the cave's "eye-holes" posts where jack was in the watch and leaned against the edge of the hole, staring outside of the cave while trying once again to come up with some sort of plan to escape from such of situation.

"Juicy, any plans at all?" Ben whispered as the yak walked to the "eye-hole," Captain Flint sitting on the yak's left shoulder, and kneeled to next to her,

Judy's ears fell down against the back of her head as the sign that she don't know yet.

She raised her head and looked to the laggoon, which was clearly seen over the palm tree jungle from here. There was Zoopaniola, still floating in the anchor and still under the black pirate flag.

"Without the map, we're lost here." She silently muttered as she stared the ship, knowing that the map was still there and undiscovered.

Then Judy looked to the jungle, where was seen the light of the campfire long distance from the hill and the border of the palm tree jungle but still in sight, locating the location of Wilder and the pirates camp.

"And if we try to leave, they'll kill us." She muttered.

Judy then turned around, rubbing her chin.

"And if we stay here… we either die of starvation or..."

"We'll be bombarded! We'll be bombarded, bombarded, bombarded, bombarded to kingdome come!" Captain Flint exclaimed, reminding Judy about Wilder's threat he made earlier if the map is not in his paws.

Judy knew that the pirates had gained the upper paw over them with Zoopaniola's cannons and she knows that they would not hesitate to launch the colley of the cannon balls targeted to the cave's entrance and maul all of them to death with the one or couple shots.

In frustration and not nowing that what to do, Judy's face fell down and she leaned against the stone wall and sighed deeply, desperately tyring to come up with the some plan.

"This is hopeless." Judy silently muttered.

Ben was also in his thoughts, trying to be somehow to useful.

"Well, Old Ben thinks that Juicy could use a little 'quiet time.' Heh. So he'll just slip out the back door." Ben said and turned to the corner of the cave.

The word "back door" got Judy to snap out of her thoughts

"The back door? What back door?" Judy said out of curiosity as she turned to Ben.

"Of course." Ben said." Here, look!" Ben said as he started to "roll" the stone wall next of which he was standing at the moment.

Judy was a bit confused and dumbfounded about that what Ben was actually doing by trying to "roll" the stone wall aside... like there was somekind of secret doorway and the way to escape from which he has not told them anything.

Judy quickly snapped out of her throughts and rushed to Ben's aid, while hopping that she would not make himself foolish by trying to "roll" the stone wall aside with the "half-scatterbrained" yak.

Judy, however, put these thoughts aside for while and kept trying to "roll" the stone wall aside.

But suddenly, much to Judy's surprise, the wall started to move a little bit aside, releasing some the cold air flow to the cave from the secret champer-like space behind the stone wall, until it suddenly stopped.

After which, Ben changed his position to next to the gap between the living stone and fake-stone wall and started to pull it backwards.

With Judy's help, Ben opened the large and a round stone door, in which its outside was also some writings in the primitive language, from the stone wall, opening the way into the another cave next to their cave.

"There's a secret tunnel out from here in underwater; underground river with the few air pockets, leading to the doorway under of the waterfall and the river. And you do not need to even ask that "how does the Old Ben know about this?" Well, Because the Old Ben has already discovered almost everything secret on this island in recent decades."

Judy peeked inside of the cave, which was vertical like the tower of the castle/fortress but hollow inside. The cave's smooth wall was also full of the ancient writings by the ancient language from the top of the cave to its bottom – if the cave even had the bottom. - The rest of the cave, a twenty feet beneath of the cliff where Judy was standing at the moment, was under the water and there was also something else much to Judy's surprise.

"Wow! There's somekind of underwater tunnel network beneath of the whole island, right? And I though that it was about only one tunnel." Judy said with the amazed tone.

"Yes, it's that bigger one near the water's level." Ben said, pointing at the largest one hole, which was from all of them the closest one of the water's surface.

"There might be several side-tunnels and underground rivers near of that one... plus some inexhaustible air pockets. The water here is drawn from the cliff above the river, which is guided here via a channel carved in stone."

"There is also a small sluice gate, with which can control the elevation of the water surface. If it's partially closed, the level of the water surface may fall to the extent that the you would be able to walk in the tunnel instead of swimming... even though the water level would still reach up to the waist." Ben explained.

"But to where those other ones will take? Don't ask from the Old Ben. Due to the great risk to get drowned due to fact that in the others has no the air pockets, Old Ben has no a clue."

There was also the rope attached to the old and rusty anchor whch was placed to near of the cliff and the rope itself was long enough to reach to the water's level, that the one in the water had change to pull himself/herself out of the water and climb back to the cliff.

But even though the risk of drowning... plus the risk of getting lost even under Ben's guide... in the underwater tunnels would be great and it was the fact that they cannot return the same way back to Ben's cave due to the underground currents mentioned by Ben...

...it was their only chance to escape. It was now or never.

"Hey, everybody! I think I found a way out of here!" Judy called to the others.

The others, inculding Leodore but reluctantly, had overheard all what Ben had said about the underwater tunnels and the channel and sluice gate which controlled the side cave's water level. But because that way to escapes included swimming in the underwater tunnels where the risk of drowning and getting lost is great... and the sluice gate and the channel Ben mentioned were at the top of the cliff and the climbing was out of the question due to the pirates stalking them outside, making it to impossible to sneak to the channel and sluice gate to lower the water level in the underwater tunnels undetected by the pirates... the crew was almost immediately hesitating and negatively protesting the idea.

Plus, even if they are able to swim out of here through the underwater tunnels, they wouldn't survive the less than couple days longer without the food and the drinkable water, which they could possibly leave behind in the cave due to the fact not being able to carry them with them. And not to mention about the gunpowder which isn't water-resistant, making their fire-arms useless and leaving them defenseless.

"Alright, I see." Judy said rolling her eyes as the crew members were even without the words hesitant and apparently choosing the starvation instead of getting themselves drowned in the underwater tunnels.

"Cowards" Judy silently muttered... being the only one with the hope and willing to take the risks for the hope of making out of the such of grim situation.

With the wistle, Judy called Captain Flint to keep her a company – or more likely that she needed that little hairy thief as her guide in her "quest," which she was gonna make in here an now before the dawn.

Captain Flint was at first trying to slip the crap he found secretly and mischievously into Leodore's shoes as the grumpy lion's attention was elsewhere, until the wistle of call came from Judy to Flint's ears.

The monkey charged eagerly towards Judy, droppingh the crap inside of Leodore's shoes, which finally got his attention.

"Whatta...?" Was all what Leodore managed to say before the crap snapped it's claws around of Leodore's tail.

"HAA-A-ARRH!" Leodore roared loudly in pain in his tail that the sound of his loud roar echoed throughout the cave airspace.

Following the roar, Leodore started to "dance" to here and there, jumping all around either with one or both of his legs, as he felt that he had something in his shoes which was pinching and stinging his legs, butt and his tail with something sharp, making the lion to roar deeply and loudly in every pain caused by the single pinch and sting in his shoes, while the lion pushed his paws into his shoes trying to reach to the strange thing and get it out from his shoes... only to feel the strange thing pinching and stinging his fingers every time his paw get closer of the strange thing.

Captain Flint chuckled mischievously while witnessing the lion's "dance." And even though Judy took the scolding scowl on her face targeted at the monkey, Judy could not help but giggle heartily herself, covering her mouth with her paw as she giggled at Leodore... for such of humiliation which even for once wasn't her fault.

Even Ben joined to her laughing... plus Susan's crew and even Leodore's guards... all expect Otterton, who was still too worried for conscious Susan.

Captain Flint burst into the loud laugh after Leodore had finally managed to grap to the strange thing and pulled it out from his shoes to see that what it was. After raising the strange thing in the level of his eyes, he screamed like the little girl as he mistook the crap as "spider" and quickly let go of a small invertebrate, only for it to strench its claws forwards and snapped them around of Leodore's nose.

"HAA-A-ARRH!" Leodore roared as he felt the pain in his nose, and the roar was followed by the hearty laugh from everybody, except the otters.

Eventually, Judy dead-seriously managed to hold herself back.

"Alright, alright, enough, enough!" Judy said and turned to Flint, who had a little difficult to hold himself back.

"Now you quit completely fooling around and teasing the others, Flint!" Judy said with the scolding tone before before she turned to Ben.

"Ben, you come with me. Because you know these caves better than anyone and you know that where are all the air pockets, I need you to show me the way out of here or I'll get myself lost and drowned. And after that, I need a helping paw in the mission which is too big for one bunny to handle on her own." Judy said as she turned around and walked into the side cave.

Ben nodded as agreement and followed Judy.

Otterton saw that Judy, Ben and Flint were about to leave from the cave, and remembering what Susan had just said to all of them before she fell into consciousness.

"No, no, no, no! Judy, wait! The captain ordered us to stay together!" Otterton tried to protest but Judy simply ignored his protest.

"Take care of her and the others while we're gone, Doc. Don't worry. We'll be back soon." Judy said and stepped to the edge of the cliff.

"Let's go, Ben!" Judy said and jumped off the cliff down to the cave.

"Cannonball!" Ben yelled when he jumped after Judy.

Otterton looked at the cliff where Ben and Judy stood a moment ago, dumbfounded and a bit annoyed about Judy's stubborness of listening her own thoughts than the others.

"No wonder if her mother had difficult to get her daughter to even listen a single word what she had to say to her daughter." Otterton muttered before he focused again to guard conscious Susan.

Meanwhile, in the corner of the cave, Leodore has finally got the crap off from his nose, but instead of letting the poor thing go, Leodore wrapped his clawed fingers around of the crap and squeezed his fingers into the fist, crushing the crap's body under of his finger's with the lion's natural brutal force.

Leodore crowled deeply, silently and angrily at this humiliation he suffered in the paws of that monkey... and maybe in the paws of that "rabbit brat" through of the monkey... and being the targed of the laugh from everybody in the cave.

Such of moment finally caused something snapped inside of Leodore.

His hatred towards that rabbit finally grew out of control.

He slowly opened his fist and looked at his clawed fingers covered by the remains of the crap, and he officially hoped to get both of his paws fingers wrapped around of that bunny's tinny little neck...

...into the squeezing grip to squeeze the life out of that bunny...

...into the brutal grip, when he could brutally and mercilessly break that bunny's neck...

...Into the bloody grip, when he could brutally open her both jugulars from each side of her neck with his claws and leave her to choke to her own blood or die into the high blood lost...

Right at the moment, Leodore was thinking many different choices to get his revenge on that bunny for all of the ""accidentally" caused humiliations targeted at him... from chaining her to the weights and throwing her overboard into the abysses to pushing her into the nest of the constrictors.

"This is a last-ditch humiliation broke the lion's back! You better to watch out for your skin, you little brat, because when the time is right, I shall have my revenge on you for all those humiliations you call "innocent" as lame excuses to get out from the trouble. Now when you mother isn't around to protect you... you're gonna be the piece of cake for me." Leodore growled.

* * *

In the underwater tunnels.

Ben ahead, Judy and Flint followed him as they swam in the larger hole and swim through the large tunnel holding from each others paws.

The tunnel was not straight, but there were a number of corners and bends and the corridor yet squirmed like a snake.

The tunnel's walls, ceiling and the floor weren't yet smooth, because there was a bit small, and a bit the bigger, stalactites hanging from the ceiling and there was the rocks in the different sizes pushing out from the floor and wall.

This tunnel had also some side-tunnels branching from this tunnel. Some of them were dark like the main tunnel and they were leading deeper under the rock where Ben's home cave was. The side-tunnels made this network somekind of underwater labyrinth and it was possible that the corridors were leading either to dead end or then they just kept going without the air pockets.

It would be a big risk of drowning to go explore the underwater tunnels, which even Ben has not yet gone to investigate, or even know that wherever they led. Bu they had not time to go to check, because they were running out the oxygen and they had immediately find the first air pocket.

And because Ben knew the way to the river, Judy and Flint had to keep up after the yak to avoid to get lost in the tunnels and then drown in here.

The few ones of the side-tunnels were the holes for the underground rivers between of their tunnels and the main tunnel, from which the watter was floating with the great power into the main tunnel, which made the main tunnel's water's floating even faster.

And when Judy, Ben and Flint passed one of those, they were immediately caught by the float which carrying the trio with the flow to fast-forward in the tunnel.

Even though Judy had drawn her lungs full with oxygen, the first trip from the side cave to the first air pocket was the long and lots of oxygen consumptioning trip, Judy was miraculously a strong swimmer and strong enough to hold her breath, for the small bunny, to reach ot the first air pocket to catch some air and to rest a bit before they kept going.

And she even had some experience about such of dive trips like this.

Judy actually loved to do the lengthy dive trips when she was younger.

Using the bunny-sized diving bell and the multiple air pockets made by the barrels, which were attached to the heavy weights and sinked into the waters, Judy had made many numerous and lengthy dive trips in the shallow waters when she was exploring the bottom of the sea... the underwater caves... and especially the wrecked ships sunken to aground, just for fun and in case if they were hiding something particularly interesting... like the treasures.

She had once found from the wrecked ship's captain's stateroom the a small box filled with a variety diamonds, which had been her the biggest and richest discover.

Only problems in such of trips were that she ran out the air pockets in middle of the interesting discovers... plus gigantic rabbit-eating barracudas, the giant octopuses who were always stalking in the wrecked ships, the flocks of burning jellyfishes and the worst ones... the large and blood-thirsty sharks.

Judy had faced these monsters many times over during of her trips.

She was once caught by the giant octopus' tentacles, which pulled her back inside of the ship. They nearly got her drowned by keeping her underwater far too long and one of them had even cailed around of her neck into the squeezing grip.

Judy was saved from such of horrible death in the tentacles of the octopus by grabbing from somewhere the sword – or more likely the knife which was the sword enough for Judy - and with which she had tried to fight the monster and free herself, but in vain due to being underwater, where the weight of the water had prevented her to chop the tentacles off but instead wounding couple of them badly but with the final stand and final attempt to survive before she could succumb to the lack of oxygen, Judy had desperately stabbed the sword through of the octopus tentacles and embed the blade into the monster's head between of its eyes, killing it and getting it to release her from the grip of the tentacles.

In another time, she had encountered the gigantic shark while she was exploring the captain's stateroom. The cruel predator of underwater had roughly came through the window wall the mouth widely open and nearly had eaten Judy at whole. Judy had however barely managed to escape by using the stateroom's equipment to cover herself from the shark's everything shredding jaws.

Because the ship wasn't the quite big, there was not inside much space for the shark to move fast in the narrow corridors, so it gave Judy a bit more time to find the air pocket from inside of the ship and then try to swim out from the ship. However, the shark had ambushed her in the cannon deck so unexpectedly that Judy nearly swam into the beast's mouth and esophagus, realizing this mistake and swimming out of the mouth at the last minute before the beast's jaws closed together. Shark had then shreddered the entire cannon deck's floor into the shreds with its jaws as Judy had tried desperately get out from the ship.

Luckily for her, the shark had got priefly stuck as the ship half-collapsed onto it, blocking its chase after Judy and giving Judy a bit time to swim out of the wrecked ship.

In need of the oxygen, Judy had to swim towards one of the air pockets as fast as she could before she had to return back ot the much more protective diving bell out of the reach of the shark's jaws.

However, the shark had broke free sooner than Judy had expected and was now coming for her, following the trial of blood from Judy's wound in her leg caused by one of the shark's teeth during of her escape.

In the half-panic, Judy had began to swim towards the barrel as fast as she could... even though the shark was much more stronger and faster swimmer than she.

During of her desperate escape, she didn't realized that she had swam through of the huge and rusty anchor's ring, just as the shark was charging at her the mouth widely open, preparing to eat her at whole.

Judy had barely managed with the 20 centimeter to evade the brutal fate of being impaled by the shark's sharp teeth by being thrown aside by the water flow from the shark's swimming speed as it had tried to get her by swimming through of the ring... but the beast, however, had got stuck in the ring and trapping itself to the anchor... allowing Judy in peace to go get some oxygen from the air pocket before returning to the surface.

But the sharks and octopuses weren't the only danger during of her diving trips. There was many troubles on the surface of the sea too. Such like the pelicans, the big ones, because once they found a small little swimming rabbit floating on the surface, they will never hesitate to descend to the surface and grab the rabbit into their sack-like mouths/beaks and then swallow the rabbit the whole.

Blue, Judy's blue-gray furred cousin, experienced such of terrible fate when she was swimming with her as a kids... until couple pelicans had attacked them. One of them had got Blue inside of his beak/mouth with the one plunge and immediately swallowed her whole. Only Judy had luckily avoided such of fate by diving under the surface just as the another pelican was about to catch her inside of his mouth/peak and swam deeper far from the pelican's reach and returning back to the surface as soon as the pelicans had lost their interest and departed.

Even after several years, Judy still remembered those dangerous moments of nearly being killed by the water monsters and that she had survived from the such of encounters with such of monsters with just plain luck, except poor Blue, whose grave Judy had the habit to visit every week after the tragic incident, bringing with her some flowers for her cousin's memory.

But even though she had faced the certain deaths and narrowly escaped, her free spirit and the will for adventure have been more stronger than the possible traumas and the sudden aappearance of the fear of water (Aquaphobia) from such of moments and she has still kept doing her diving trips underwater... only a bit more careful every time after the encounters.

However, it wasn't now the right moment to remember the moments of the past, as she, Ben and Flint had to keep swimming in the underwater tunnels and to get to the next air pocket.

* * *

Judy, Ben and Flint kept swimming in the tunnel, visiting in every air pocket they passed to catch their breath.

And when they finally reached to the tunnel's end which was hidden under the waterfall of the river coming from the top of the cliff, Judy and Flint noticed that they've reached to the island's river starting from the pool under of the waterfall, which was quite near of the hill and Ben's cave.

Judy wiped the water off from her eyes and face and hurriedly gasped for breath for couple times, enjoying for a moment the fresh oxygen's delicious taste.

But suddenly, as she opened her eyes, she spotted one of Wilder's pirates near of the pool.

"So, what's the plan!" Ben, unaware of the sleeping pirate nearby, shouted as the yak jumped out of the water to catch some breath.

Judy gasped in shock after Ben's sudden shouting.

The yak had already forgotten that the cave was under the watch of the pirate scouts hidden in the jungle and waiting for someone to carelessly coming out so that they can either report about that to Wilder or shoot the " runaways" personally?

"SHH! BEN! QUIET!" Judy loudly whispered and quickly shutted Ben's mouth with her paws, pulling them both nearly completely underwater, leaving only the upper side of their heads – and eyes - above of the water surface to check the situation and being immediately ready to get underwater if they were about to be spotted by the pirate.

However, the woodchuck pirate didn't react to Ben's loud shouting. Luckily for them, the pirate was fell asleep. Or more likely, the pirate had drunk three full bottles of rum and then gone out.

The pirate was definitely out and unconscious thanks to the rum.

Judy and Ben then stood up from the water and Judy referred Ben to follow her quietly.

They couldn't move in the jungle, because despite the protective darkness, their steps onto the fallen leaves and branches from the palm trees and the rustling of the bushes leaves after in their passing could attract the attention of the possible pirate scouts hiding nearby... they had to go through the river.

Judy, Ben and Flint moved slowly and silently through the river and kept at the same time their heads down, hidden from the sight, while trying to get to the beach undetected by the possible pirate scouts.

They kept silently moving until they suddenly crossed paths with the ashored longboats... very familiar longboats... attached to the nearby trees by the ropes. There was also a little dim, orange and fluttering spotlight shooting against the nearby trees.

Both the spotlight and the boats told to Judy that where exactly they were.

Judy, Flint and Ben rose out of the water to ashore and quickly hid in the nearest bush and carefully peeked the behind of the bushes leaves and branches... officially confirming Judy's assumption as to correct.

They had ended up to near of the camp, which was set next to the river and it was full of the pirates who were sleeping – and loudly snoring - around of the still burning campfire, and Wilder was in there as well. None of them seemed to be even in the watch... Probably due to the fact that they were all either drunk too much like that woodchuck pirate back in the waterfall pool, or then they did not expected the surprise attack from their people in the cave nor the ambush of the savaged animal... with the 100% sure that they were able to sleep this night peacefully in the jungle instead in the ship.

After making sure that none of the pirates were awake, Judy turned to Ben.

"Okay, listen. The purpose of this quest in to gain the upper paw over the pirates, so here's the plan. Step one: we sneak back to Zoopaniola. Step two: we remove the gunpowder from the ship making its cannons unable for them to use them against us. And step three: we find and bring back the map." Judy explained in a whisper.

"Well, that's..." Ben was about to say with the normally loud voice instead of whispering, so Judy had to shut her mouth yet again by grabbing with her paws from the yak's lips and pulling them together.

"What did I said earlier about being quiet?" Judy whispered, reminding Ben with the annoyed tone of voice that she had earlier told him to be quiet because of the pirates.

"I was just gonna say... "Well, that's the good plan. Old Ben likes that plan." Ben mumbled, due to his mouth still being held shut by Judy.

"The only thing is… old Ben is wondering, how we are supposed to get there?"

Judy rolled her eyes and pointed the longboats in the beach of the camp, which were not guarded by the pirates, luckily for them.

"Well, with one of those, moron." She whispered.

* * *

 **I hoped that all readers and followers enjoyed this chapter.  
Tenth chapter is on its way.**  
 **See ya next time.**


	10. Chapter 10: Judy fights Israel Grey

**HELLO AGAIN TO ALL CURRENT AND UPCOMING FANS AND FOLLOWERS OF TREASURE TROPOLIS!  
**  
 **My tenth chapter of my TREASURE TROPOLIS is now out.**

 **I got this chapter some time ago finished, but I wanted to wait a bit for the perfect moment to publish this.  
The another reason to wait is that I have a couple another stories ****with which I also want to proceed.**

 **Enjoy the reading... and give then the review after it.**

* * *

After Judy and Ben quietly stole one of the boat by untying its rope attached to the tree and pushed it quietly to the water, they rowed together through the river and the jungle the long way until they finally reached to the laggoon, where Zoopaniola was floating in the anchor.

The sight of Zoopaniola was far from comforting. The ship was quite dark and even creepy-looking at the nighttime and under the pirates black skull flag, which was still floating with the night wind in the top of the main mast. The ship itself with its current appearance under the pirates and even the half-thick night fog over the laggoon gave the very threatening atmosphere.

Zoopaniola seemed to be abandoned, but, however, Judy and Ben stopped the rowing towards the ship and stayed in the place a long distance away from the ship, because Judy was dead-seriously sure that Wilder wasn't that stupid that he didn't left someone in the watch to the ship while the most of the crew were on the island after their group and, as they believe so, the map.

Whoever Wilder had left to watch over ship, approaching the ship so carelessly and without suspecting that nothing bad would happen may possibly cost to Judy and Ben their lives.

And the last thing Judy wanted on their mission was waste their precious time to find the map and sabotage the gunpowder before dawn by drawing the possible guard's attention to them and obviously forcing them to deal with the guard whatever he was by the species.

Judy had took with her the telescope, with which she at first checked Zoopaniola's decks and the windows of the captain's stateroom. The decks revealed to be empty but there was the weak light in captain's stateroom. Probably the lantern candle, which is soon burned out completely.

At least it told Judy that there was someone in the stateroom.

Despite the fact of someone's precense, the way to the deck and to and under the deck seemed to be clear, but still, just in case and without attracting unnecessary attention of anyone who was in the stateroom and yet unaware of their precense, Judy and Ben rowed to the neck of the ship as quiet as they were able to row.

When Judy and Ben eventually reached to the side of Zoopaniola. Judy tied the longboat to the anchor's rope to keep it from floating away while they were in their mission to find the map and sabotage the gunpowder.

After it was done, Judy, Ben and Flint, who was sitting on Judy's left shoulder the mouth gaged just in case to prevent him to make loud voices, climbed through of anchor rope to behind of Zoopaniola's bow deck's railing, but before they climbed over the railing, they peeked over the railing to make sure yet one more time that there was no one on the deck in the watch.

Sneaking over the railing to the deck went well without any sounds, until Ben stumbled over a bucket of water, which caused him to trip over his own feet and the yak fell to the deck, loudly yelping in pain.

"BEN, QUIET!" Judy whispered loudly nervously, fearing that Ben's clumsiness would draw attention of the guard or guards, unless they had either gone to sleep or gone out by excessive drinking of rum while being in the watch like that woodchuck pirate in the watch near of the waterfall and pool.

"Sorry, Old Ben's bad." Ben muttered as he stood up.

The light in the captain's stateroom was now more stronger and brighter, telling to Judy that someone out there wasn't in the sleep as she had thought, so they had to do this as quietly as possible and use every minute for the benefit to sneak to the cargo hold, find the map, remove the gunpowder from the ship and then get out of here as long as guard is unaware of their presence in the ship.

And they had to do it quickly, because without the looking to the clock, Judy did not exactly know how much yet they had time to dawn, when Wilder and his crew would eventually return to the ship to carry out Wilder's threat to destroy Ben's cave with the volley of the cannonballs and kill everybody in there.

Judy and Ben sneaked quietly from the bow deck to the staird leading to the cannon deck and climbed down the stairs.

Judy and Ben went the whole cannon deck through while searching for the map, during of which Judy kept an eye on Captain Flint to make sure that the monkey wouldn't run away. but when there was no any sight of the map in the deck, they had to go to search the map from the cargo hold.

"Alright, I'll get the map, you wait here and keep watch." Judy whispered to Ben, referring him to stay in the stairs.

"Roger, Juicy. Old Ben's gonna remove the ship's gunpowder, sir!" Ben shouted in a whisper, giving to Judy the salute before he suddenly departed to the deck.

"What? No! No! Ben! Ben! Don't! Come back!" Judy whisperely yelled after the yak but completely in vain. Her words fell to the deaf ears of the naked dumb yak.

" _ **Yo-ho, yo-ho, yo-ho, a pirate's life for me**_." Ben sang while he disappeared to search the ship's armory.

Judy run her paw down through of her face, rolled her eyes and sighed in annoyance for Ben's stupidity. They were supposed to sapotage the ship's gunpowder after the map was in their paws.

Not just yet again forgetting that they were in the hostile area, but now that yak just had do disobey her direct order by making the change in the plan by himself... even though Even if in his mind would have been a great temptation even once to be useful somehow.

However, instead of going after Ben, Judy eventually, though reluctantly, allowed Ben go take care of the other half of their mission and even that would be taken care of out of the way, as long as Ben does not just give out their presence.

Judy only lightly shook her head and desperately hoped that she did not need to regret of allowing Ben go to sabotage the gunpowder on his own, and went herself to search the map from the cargo hold Captain Flint with her.

Ben arrived quickly to the ship's armory, which was not hard to find due to its door beimng smashed and nobody of the pirates had bothered to repair the door.

"Remove the gunpowder from the ship without sound and so quickly as possible." "We have to do it together." C'mon! What is the big deal with that? All we gotta do is pick and throw overboard one or a few small powder kegs." Ben muttered as he stepped into the armory.

Much to the yak's surprise, he discovered that there was countless powder kegs of different sizes and the ones, which were so big that only elephants or non-elephants but still a big and strong animals like bears, rhinos, hippoes, gorillas and buffaloes would be able to lift them from the ground and even carry them overboard.

This half of the mission was bigger what he at first had thought.

"So quickly as possible" said Juicy. But the Old Ben says… This is gonna take the whole night." Ben muttered to himself.

Meanwhile in the cargo hold, Judy was firmly but with poor results searching the map from among of the cargo, to where he believed Captain Flint had hidded it.

When the seaching wasn't gonna get successeed, Judy started slowly fear that maybe the pirates, or at least the one of them in the watch, had eventually found the map from the ship's cargo hold and brought it to the captain's stateroom, to where was too risky even to try even to break in.

However, Captain Flint eventually started to pull Judy hardly backwards by her shoulder and eagerly referred her to follow him.

At first, Judy believed that Captain Flint wanted only to play hide-and-seek game, just like he eagerly wanted to play tag during the mutiny, even though Judy was not and still is not in that mood. But fter remembering that Flint was the only one who actually knew where the map was, Judy eventually followed the monkey.

Captain Flint led Judy to his own secret trove in the form of the wooden box full of all kind of stuff, which Captain Flint had stolen from the crew during of the voyage. Probably it contained also the map, which Ben stole from her during the mutiny.

Judy began immediately to rummage the box, picking up every small object from the box – during of which Judy found several of belongings which belong to Otterton, Susan and Leodore... such as Leodore's fat burse, Susan's blue captain hat and Otterton's watch plus some of his medical stuff.

Eventually, Judy got something under of her fingers which felt like the paper – very old paper. Picking it up from the box, Judy's eyes widened and her lips formed into the wide smile.

It was the map.

Judy sighed in a deep relief that the map was in her paws again... safe and sound.

Judy also nearly immediately noticed that Captain Flint had of course accidentally torn the map in half, which the monkey standing next to her admited a bit embarrassed, pulling his hands behind of his back, lowering his a bit blushing head down and rolling his feet.

However, this did not bothered Judy. The main thing was that when the map was in their paws, they also had partially the upper hand over the pirates.

With the map, they are able to take down two birds with one stone. One; They may yet find the treasure. And two; the map in their possession guarantees them that they have the upper hand over the pirates and even protection for them against the pirates lethal force such like the deadly volley of the cannonballs as Wilder had threated.

With the map in her possession, Judy began to think that maybe she could consider Wilder's earlier offer yet, but this time on her own terms, to avoid the needless bloodshed between of the crew and the pirates.

Suddenly, Judy heard the loud gunshot coming from the main deck, which badly alerted Judy.

"BEN!" Judy exclaimed with the knowing and exasperated look on her face as she realized that Ben had somehow got into his head to start to play with the armory's firearms.

And then, she heard the another loud gunshot more.

"No, no, no, NO, NO, NO!" Judy exclaimed as she stuffed the map in her pocket and started running back towards the deck from the cargo hold.

Meanwhile, back in the armory.

As Jusy had guessed, Ben's curiosity of all of the pistols and muskets in the armory, which the pirates had not taken with them, had indeed taken him over. And his quickly excessive interest to the firearms - probably due to he having forgotten that what is the firearm? - had drove him to test the couple pistols.

He was at first examining the pistols in his hands - even a peeked inside the barrels of the guns, and yet his hoofed fingers were resting on the pistols triggers as he kept peeking inside the barrels of the pistols, continuing from the one in his left hand.

Suddenly, he had accidentally pulled the trigger of another pistols in his right hand, which he had unintentionally turned to aim his head. The loud sound of gunshot caused him quickly turn his attention – and taking his eyes off from the top of the barrel of the pistol – to the pistol with wich he accidentally fired. It was because of the sheer luck that Ben was still alive, because the bullet had narrowly missed his head, but it had flied through of his hair and scratched his right horn in the process as the bullet flied over of his head.

As Ben's tensed attention had completely turned to the pistol in his right, his tensed finger unintentionally and by the reflexes pulled the trigger of the pistol in his left hand and fire to the ceiling of the armory.

Ben startled again, and this time so badly that he dropped both the pistols to the floor.

However, despite being badly startled by the loud gunshots, tensed and a bit shocked Ben quickly relaxed himself.

"Bad Ben! Bad Ben! Juicy said "Quietly!" Bad Ben! Bad Ben!" Ben scolded himself as he eventually lost his interest to the pistols and started to roll the powder kegs out from the armory.

Judy was at the same time reached to the cannon deck and rushed towards the stairs to Ben's help, muttering much to her annoyance about Ben's stupidity.

"That stupid yak is gonna get us all..." Judy muttered when she ran to the stairs, until she suddenly stopped abruptly at the bottom of the stairs as she raised her head up.

Judy's eyes then widened in shock.

"…to killed!"

Much to Judy's horror, she realized the guard Wilder had left to watch over ship was none else than... MR. ISRAEL GREY, who was most certainly alerted by the gunshots Ben fired in the ship's armory.

The evil fox pirate was standing in the top of the stairs but the couple steps a bit lower, telling to Judy that Grey was most likely already checked the decks, finding no any intruders – which meant that he was yet unaware of Ben's presence – and was then about to come down to check the cannon deck and cargo hold.

The evil fox pirate was at first surprised and a bit confused to see the intruder nearly running into him in the stairs. But whenGrey eventually recognized that who the intruder on Zoopaniola was... his expression turned from the confused and surprised into a bloodthirsty grin.

"Aah, capin bunny." Grey hissed sadistically as he pulled out the loaded blunderbuss and the large ax.

"Such of pity that Wilder isn't here right now. I would have like to see that what is his reaction when I dig one of your pretty eyes out of your tiny little head." Evil fox pirate growled, reminding Judy about his earlier and quite similar bloodthirsty threat he had planned for her and given to Wilder before the mutiny.

As Judy had already realized, that without Wilder's protective interfere back in her and Israel Grey's first fierce and nearly brutal met in the beginning of the voyage – which had turned out to be just a cover his true intentions and that Judy did not missed especially HIS protection anymore after his emotionally hurting betrayal – Israel Grey was now completely free to kill him right here and now.

Judy's felt inside of her the great urge, which told her to run for her dear life.

That urge didn't have to tell her twice.

"RUN!" Judy shouted to Captain Flint.

Judy quickly turned around in the stairs I started to run as fast as she could down to the cargo hold, Mr. Israel Grey right behind of her.

While running in the corridors of the cargo hold, Judy threw on her way some cargo down in order to desperately slow him down. But after every attempt to slow him down, the evil fox pirate, who was running after her with all fours in the savage lust for bunny's flesh and blood, was still right behind of her.

As Judy felt the fox hot breath on her neck, she didn't dare turn back to look, because if she did so, every wasted minute would only grow the fox pirate's best opportunity to catch her.

So, Judy put all her natural instincts and her entire focus into putting one foot in front of the other and praying that she wouldn't trip.

The monkey knew that he was just giving to Judy the needless extra weight, which slowed her down and gave to the fox the opportunity to reach her. So, Captain Flint decided to make the possible suicide attack in order to buy Judy enough time to escape from the fox's claws.

Captain Flint then surprisingly leaped from Judy's shoulder and attacked Grey's faces as the fox pirate was about to lock Judy's neck between of his sharp-toothed jaws into the deadly bite. Such of counter attack came to Wilder so unexpectedly, that he had no time to prepare for Captain Flint's counter attack.

The monkey was already upon of Grey's faces, battering them by biting him from his nose, punching his face with his tiny fists so hard as he was able and yet pulled painfully from Grey's ears, causing him to bark in pain and growing anger.

The monkey eventually had no match for the fox pirate as the pirate grabbed painfully with his claws from the monkey's back and threw Flint aside before he continued the hot pursuit after the bunny.

"Come back you little…!" Grey yelled and began to shoot with his blunderbuss and the multiple pistols towards Judy multiple times, narrowly missing Judy's head but instead hitting only to the wooden stuff of the ship.

Grey even threw his ax towards Judy in order to chop off Judy's head with its large blade, but Judy managed to dodge the weapon's strike just nick in time before it managed to chop off her head or embed into the back of her head and embed instead to one of the cargo holds supportive wooden pillars.

As Judy rushed to the corridor which led to the crew's cabin, narrowly missing Grey's last couple shots which hit into the wall next to her right kneel and her left ear, an enraged fox pirate threw his to "useless" declared pistols aside and picked his ax from the support pillar and continued the hot pursuit.

In the half-panic due to being like the hunted prey animal, because the bunnies and foxes were in fact the mortal enemies and she was ironically at the moment hunted by the savage fox pirate, Judy run into the crew's cabin and much to her shock and horror, there was the wooden grin placed o nthe way which led from the crew's cabin to the deck, meaning that she was in tracp in here.

And much worse, the another way out was blocked by suddenly appeared Israel Grey, holding the ax in his paws and with the savage look on his face. The fox was quite pleased from this "sweet coincidence" because he... or in fact the dumb bunny had got herself trapped in the securited crew's cabin due to hasty panicking.

The evil fox pirate then with the savage rage attacked Judy and began to swing his axe towards the bunny, trying to hit to Judy's neck to chop off her head with the one swing.

Judy tried to get the fox to mess himself into the hammock by jumping and moving fast in between of them to which Grey, as bigger than Judy and because of being Fox, wasn't able.

Grey got immediately and badly stuck in the hammocks, which messily wrapped around of his upper body, holding her in the place, as soon as he run into them while he chased after Judy without noticing the hammocks.

But however, savagely barking in rage, Grey savagely started to shred with his claws and with his ax every hammock, into the shreds to get out from the mess and to continue hunting down the rabbit.

Judy tried then to use the wooden chair as shield against Grey's attacks, but Grey hacked the chair into pieces with his ax. Grey tried hit her to head again, but Judy managed to dodge it by bowing out of the weapon's way and it embed and get stuck in the room's wall.

While Grey angrily tried to pull his ax free from the wall, Judy took advantage of this by running underneath of the wooden table. She managed to get on her feet and run towards the crew's cabin... and just nick in time as Grey finally managed to pull the ax off from the wall and immediately raised the ax above of his head and savagely hacked with it the cabin's table in half in order to hit Judy.

After Judy managed to get out from the cabin, she slammed the door close in front of the charging Grey – making him to hit his nose into the door, which caused him to loudly yelp in pain – and after that, Judy quickly barred the door with another chair in order to buy herself enough time to escape to the stairs.

But the door didn't hold the enraged fox for long as the fox grabbed and loaded the blunderbuss and blasted the door, along with the chair, partialy into pieces just when Judy managed to get out of the cargo hold.

In the cannon deck, which was lighted with the ship lanterns, Judy turned and went into hide behind of one of the deck's cannons. She was finally to take some breath after such of hasty running away from that fox for her precious life... until Israel Grey suddenly appeared to the deck.

"Come out, come out, where ever you are, dumb bunny!" Israel Grey teased with the dark sadistic humor as he slowly but treateningly walked towards Judy's cover behind the cannon...

As Judy carefully peeked from behind of the cannon, the fox did not seemed to even pay the any attention towards the cannon behind of which she was hiding. This got Judy to wonder that was he either pretending to be unaware that where Judy was in hide or was he just trying to push her out from her hiding spot by saying something tricky and very disturbing.

"We're on the boat, you little freshy shish kebab. There's no way to run away. But go on... keep doing that as you want... flee, flee and flee... run for your life... you can hide, hide, but eventually the fox finds you with the high sensitive sense of smell."

Grey started to sniff the air for five seconds.

"Ooh! Smelling the warmth of the rabbit's flesh... especially the warmth of the rabbit does flesh... hmmm...! It's so delicious scent... tasteful scent..."

"Grey's mouth dropped and his tongiue fell out and and remained hanging from his mouth while drool begins to fill out from his mouth.

"It's not the first time but instead of the very long time since I've devoured such of delicious rabbits like you."

A bit sight of fear strike to Judy's heart. Not just being the bloodthirsty and treacherous pirate, but all of that means that this fox pirate actually EATS THE BUNNIES!

Judy frozed into her place by the growing fear for her life, unable to even move in the fear of revealing her location to that savage bunny-eater fox.

Even though Judy did not dare to watch, Grey was pulling out two daggers, whose blades he grinded against each other, which caused the sounds which caused her furry skin to rise into goose bumps.

"When I found you, I'm gonna use these daggers to skin your furr off you slowly – while you're still alive of course - and place you into skewers and put you above of the fire. As I said, It has been a long time since I've last time ate the fresh roasty bunny. And this time, it's going to be easy for me now when that pathetic Wilder isn't here to save you!" Grey said darkly… slowly and sadistically.

The one drop of tear water ran down Judy's cheek, as she managed a bit fight back against her own fear as she slowly and silently pulled her pistol out and loaded it with the fresh bullet... after she realized, or at least she believed so, that that fox was just trying to trick her... tyring to lure her out from the hide by poisoning her courage with the fear and such of unspeakable things he openly mentioned and what he was "gonna" plan to do for her.

Judy started to gather all her courage together in her heart, because she absolutely wasn't willing to go down or get to be eaten by that homicidal fox without the fight. And she silently declared that if she was gonna go down, she would take that fox with her too.

As Israel Grey was slowly coming closer – having spotted Judy's slowly upright raising ears behind of the cannon and at first slowly and then hastily rushing towards her raising his ax abobve of his head - Judy quickly jumped out from behind of the cannon and pointed the gun in Grey's face.

The pirate fox stopped dead in his tracks, mere inches from the barrel of Judy's gun, and quickly back off after he spotted the pistol in the bunny's paws.

"If I were you, you little shish kebab, I would drop the pistol because I got some friends with me here... RIGHT BEHIND YOU!" Grey suddenly and loudly exclaimed as he pointed with his clawed finger towards the stairs.

Guided by her instinct, Judy turned around to peek over of her shoulder and turned her pistol towards the stairs. Realizing – too late - that there was no one in the stairs.

"Dumb bunny!" Wilder mockingly laughed and smashed the ship lantern with his ax and quickly pulled out two pistols and fired with them two another lanterns from the another side of the cannon deck... cutting all the lights out from the cannon deck.

"Hey!" Judy yelled into panic turned annoyance and frustration as the lights died.

Judy quickly turned around to where Grey was a moment ago standing, but the fox pirate, much to her horror, was no longer in behind of her.

Judy cautiously turned to everywhere, searching frantically for Israel Grey... or at least trying to spot him moving in the dark, but she had forgot that the bunnies do not have the night vision unlike the foxes does.

Even the bright light coming down from the moon didn't helped her to spot the evil pirate fox.

She blindly pointed her pistol around and breathed in panic. She tried to catch the any single voice or the sound of breathing or steps with her sharp sense of hearing, but to her confusion... he didn't heard any kind of sound neither the voice, even in the form of whispering.

Awkward and distressing silence was upon of her among the dark.

Judy turned a bit her head to her left side, sligthly peeking over of her left shoulder after she thought that she saw something moving in the corner of her eye. But when Judy looked in that direction, there was nothing there.

Even though Judy had gathered enough of her own courage to face that fox – behind of her pistol of course - she became yet again increasingly terrified.

Every hair on her slender grey body was sticking up as she sensed the danger, but she was unable to locate where it was.

Suddenly, two golden eyes appeared from the dark and lowered down to scowl her from above… right behind of her.

It was Israel Grey. After he had killed the lights, he had somehow managed to silently sneak under the cover of the darkness behind of her and climbed onto the cannon above of Judy, moving and breathing so quietly as he could to prevent Judy to locate him with the rabbit's natural sensitive sense of hearing.

Smiling sadistically, and knowing that he had both upper paw over the "dumb bunny" and advantage of surprise, Grey started slowly, quietly and carefully place his dagger to Judy's throat… planning to slit her throat open from behind as long as the bunny was unaware about the threat right behind of her.

Suddenly, Captain Flint appeared out of nowhere right front of Israel Grey's faces and while the evil fox pirate was looking at the monkey confused, Flint took opportunity from this and pushed two of his fingers to Grey's yellow eyes.

Grey yelped loudly in pain holding his eyes with his paws, and thanks to Flint's interference, Grey's loud yelp in pain revealed to Judy her enemy's whereabouts, much to Bunny's surprise and horror.

Angrily ignoring the pain and enraged for losing the advantage of surprise and the great opportunity to slit Judy's throat, Grey angrily and roughly tossed Flint again aside before he turned back to Judy.

The evil fox pirate swung his right arm and fist towards Judy's head, roughly punching the bunny into the face and tossing her down to the ground, knocking in the process her pistol out of her paws, which flied far away from her reach.

Grey attacked her again, raising the ax above of his head in intention to split Judy's head in half with his ax.

Judy gasped in shock of this and quickly tried to crawl up on her feet and reach to her pistol. But Grey hardly and roughly to her abdomen, causing her to loudly squeak in the burning wave of pain from the kick to her abdomen and she fell violently back to on her back on the floor.

Grey rushed to her, grinning both sadistically and triumphantly, as he pinned with his foot Judy to the ground and began to swing his axe towards Judy's head.

Judy managed barely to dodge the fox pirate's couple attacks with his ax targeted to middle of her head, as the ax landed only less than five centimetres away from both of her cheeks.

Judy soon spotted that the pirate's blunderbuss – probably reloaded - was lying nearly next to her. Israel Grey had probably dropped and completely forgot it at some point of their fight.

Knowing that she cannot dodge the fox attacks with the ax for long without something with which she could fight back, she quicckly strenched her arm towards the weapon and picked it as Israel Grey was preparing for a new attack with his ax.

Judy quickly pulled blunderbuss into the way of the fox pirate's ax, defending herself with it against Grey's attacks by blocking his strikes.

Meanwhile, back in the armory.

Ben, who was completely unaware about the fight between Judy and Grey on the cannon deck, had gathered to the deck the half of the gunpowder next of the main mast and had started throw powder kegs overboard the keg by keg, starting from the smaller and lighter ones and leaving the bigger and heavier ones for to be thrown overboard later.

After he had thrown less than a couple dozen powder kegs, whuch he was able to carry in his arms, to overboard, he returned to the armory to get more powder kegs.

After he had rolled new dozen next of the main mast and was going to get more, he suddenly spotted and took interest of the fabric bag full of the odd metallic balls with the narrow rope hanging out from them.

They were grenades! Which one of the pirates had probably hidden in the bag to the armory during of loading the ship's cargo hold.

Because he didn't know or even remembered for what purpose the grenades were for, he decided to test them, forgetting once again that what was his original and true mission with the armory and the powder kegs.

Ben spotted the ship lantern standing on top of the nearby water barrel and walked to it to light up the grenade's slowmatch with its candle's flame.

As the slowmatch was in fire, Ben held the grenade in his paws with the excited expression on his face.

As grenade's slowmatch had almost burned out, in the seconds bored Ben, who was waiting something great to be happened, eventually threw the grenade away into the air and was about to go back to work, until the grenade eventually blew up in mid-air before it hit to the water.

Ben was at first startled and stunned by the grenade's sudden explosion, until he started childishly lope around of the deck with joy.

"Fireworks!" Ben shouted with joy and began to gather more grenades from the bag. One by one he light up their slowmatches with the lantern's candle's flame, waited a little time and then he threw them one by one into the air, watching eagerly as every grenade exploded in the mid-air.

"OLD BEN LOVES FIREWORKS!"

Meanwhile in the cannon deck, Judy was still desperately fighting against Grey, until some sudden explosions coming from the deck got both of their attentions from the each others and their fight.

"What was that?!" Grey exclaimed as he felt in his nose the scent of the burned powder.

Unlike Grey, Judy immediately knew without guessing that who was probably behind of the sudden explosions on the deck. None else than Old Ben, who was now doing something... VEEEERY STUPID... and thoughtless once again, either out of the shipwrecked yak's curiosity or pure idiocy instead of doing his job to remove the gunpowder from the ship.

Quickly, Judy returned to the the present moment, and she knew that she had to act now as long as distracted Grey's attention was elsewhere thanks to the sudden explosions.

Taking advantage of this, Judy quickly kicked both with her feet to Grey's stomach with all rabbit's natural strength she had in her legs, causing the surprised fox pirate to let out the loud "UGH!" from his mouth as the unexpected and hard kick from the bunny's legs forced him into the bowing position.

And when he wrapped his arms around of his sore stomach and gritted his teeth in pain Judy kicked him again, and this time into his face. Loudly yelping in pain, Grey stepped from the power of the kick violently backwards, so that he eventually lost his balance and fell on his back to the floor, allowing Judy to aim with the blunderbuss to the cannon deck's ceiling's grids and blasted the hole into it. Big enough for her to fit out of it.

Grey recovered quickly from Judy's fierce kick and enraged about it he attacked her again.

Judy quickly jumped back on her feet and with the support of the nearby cannon, she bounced to a high leap over the fox pirate's head, narrowly dodging his axe, and landing on his head and jumped again towards the hole, nearly flying through of it but was nearly gonna fall through the hole back to the cannon deck if she did not nick in time grabbed from the another holes of the grids and using them she climbed out of the hole in hurry to the deck.

"Ben! Ben! I got the map! We have to get out of here and…" Judy called for Ben, until she was interrupted by Israel Grey's roar in fury from the cannon deck

Suddenly, with the savage expression on his bloodthirsty face and in the berserk-like rage, Israel Grey jumped unexpectedly through of the grids behind of Judy, much to her shock and horror, and attacked her once again, nearly cutting off Judy's ears with the ax if Judy had not bowed down in the last minute out of the axe's way.

But still, Judy was able to feel the cold flow of the air following the ax swung over her head in her ears, as the axe's blade cut in the process a few of her head hairs in half.

Enraged and bloodthirsty fox started to chase Judy around of the deck trying to hit her with the ax, damaging the ship's railings, mast, the deck and smashing the barrels and lanterns on the deck in the process. But thanks to Judy's natural speed and bunny's reflexes, plus the sheer luck, she narrowly managed to dodge the fox pirate's every stike.

Israel Grey, however, managed to tackle Judy by aiming his axe's wooden handle's another head to between of bunny's legs. But instead, the axe's handle hit painfully Judy straight to her left leg's knee. Judy yelped loudly in pain as the pain wave took over her leg and caused her to fall over to the deck... ands remained lying on the deck helplessly and defenseless at the mercy of her enemy... and only because of her sore left knee from the fox's strike, which almost sealed her fate.

Ignorin the pain, Judy managed once again to dodge Grey's ax, before it split her head in half. Grey tried to pull the ax up and try yet again to split the bunny's head in half... only to find out that the "accursed" ax had yet again got stuck to the deck next of the bunny's right cheek.

Half-relaxed and half-panicked, Judy took advantage of this and kicked once again the fox pirate straight to the face, causing him to yet again fall backwards and let go of his axe, whiuch came Judy a bit more time to laboriously get back on her feet and hastily limp towards the shrouds, starting to climb through of them to the main mast, in desperate attemp to get either far away from the savage fox pirate or then have the miuch better defensive position from the mast.

Grey once again quickly recovered from the rabbit's kick into his face and enraged from it, he looked everywhere trying to frantically find the rabbit from the deckwith his eyes.

Suddenly, he heard the light moanings in pain from above of him and raised his head up to look up... noticing and realizing that Judy was trying to climb through the shrouds into the main mast.

"What the dumb bunny!" Grey exclaimed and climbed back on his feet, after which he himself went in pursuit after her in the shrouds, knowing that the "dumb rabbit" like Judy was only gonna get herself trapped in the mast.

She actually did – or at least Grey believed so.

After the long and - due to Judy's sore knee - hard climbing up, Judy eventually reached to the crow's-nest in the top of the main mast, where Judy believed that she was in the better defensive position against Grey.

But she also knew that there was no another way out. Meaning, that she was in trap, yet again.

As Israel Grey started threateningly reach to the crow's-nest, Judy leaned against the mast and took her another pistol out, aiming with it the fox pirate, who was hanging on the edge of the crow's-nest, in the head.

"Stay back! No more step, Israel Grey!" Judy yelled to the fox, trying desperately fight mentally against her growing fear of the situation.

"Judy, it was your name, right?" Israel Grey asked at first, before he let out the deep and a bit exhausted smile.

"Judy. Have you ever even fired with the gun? Have you ever even killed somebody? How do you feel of yourself to take from another his life... particularly when you yourself are in the much better defensive position... and another one you're aiming with your little peashooter is hanging for his dear life at your mercy? In fact, I've never heard nor even seen the lovers of the peace like the bunnies actually killing anyone, because of their pathetic honesty and sensitive emotionality. Exception of the pirates, the killing, murdering, slaughtering, butchering and execution... either through grace or mercilessly ... either with or without compassion ... with or without remorse... always leaves the emotional scars in your mind. But if you're really killed someone for your own reasons, my congratulations for that. The bunny like you would made a good pirate." Israel Grey said.

"You can shoot me right here and right now... mercilessly as any other pirate does to his or her victims... and become just like me, when I myself without mercy, compassion or remorse sent Mr. Bogo into his watery grave." Grey smirked sadistically.

Judy tried to ignore what Israel Grey had just said, believing that the fox was only gonna try to get her off guard. But much to her shock, Judy found out that the fox speech was emotionally effective to her... and she even saw the truth in it.

She saw her paw around of the handle of her pistol and her finger on the pistol's trigger trembling and her head fur was sweaty because of the emotional anguish and a sense of guilt appeared out of nowhere. Even her ears went droppy because of the wave of emotional pain. and a sense of guilt and her face dropped down.

Even though she had already killed Wilder's pirates back in Ben's cave and possibly back in the Inn of Bunnyburrow when her home was under of attack by the pirates, she started to feel inside of her the emotional strong and guilt feeling urge to lower her weapon down and spare Grey's life because she "couldn't" bring herself to kill even the such of bloodthisrty and merciless murderer like him with the one single headshot as he was hanging in the edge of the crow's-nest at her mercy.

She certainly did not wish to make herself a similar murderous monster as Grey by killing him by the same way how the fox had killed Mr. Bogo during of their desperate struggle at the mercy of hurricane and the Endless Maelstrom.

"So, you can't do it. Pathetic." Grey taunted her as he tried to climb on the crow's-nest.

However, Judy suddenly snapped out of her thoughts and reacted to Grey's sudden move to climb on the crow's nest by raising her gun and aiming it to Grey's face, forcing him to back down a little bit.

Judy's ears jumped back upright above of her head and she locket her emotionally angered and bittered scowl in her eyes to the fox front oh her. She had realized that the fox wasn't trying to get her feel remorse for killing the lives but instead only trying to poison her soul and her emotions by threacherously and with the venom in his voice to encourage her to do what the real pirates are able to do without mercy, compassion or remorse to their victims and become to as cold-blooded murderer like them... like Grey."

"You know nothing about me, fox! You know nothing about my feelings and my acts in the past. But yes, you were right with one thing. I'm killer as well as you and I've killed, but not become to as cold-blooded murderer and emotionless monster like you. I've killed only in self-defense... but not the animals in the right side of the law. I've killed the pirates, your kind and your buddies, and there is no need to feel any kind of remorse of killing the murderous and emotionless pirates like you. And yes, this is the same situation like back in the hurricane when you mercilessly killed Mr. Bogo in the background, but the the parties have changed; Mr. Bogo was back then at your mercy, and now you're at my mercy... You killed him mercilessly but now, if I'm gonna kill you, I'll kill you as self-defense and not because of being the cold-blooded murderer. But this doesn't need to end like this! You have a chance surrender and go peacefully into the ship's brig and remain in there until we get back to the home port, where you will be placed in front of the trial." Judy declared.

However, Israel Grey only tauntingly chuggled at this.

"Judy, Judy, Judy. Big talk, coming from someone who's the natural prey of my species. Anyway, I think that one of the two of us has to give up after our little cat-and-mouse game. Besides, you do not know me you neither. You should to be aware of the fact that such a harsh, ferocious, heartless and bloodthirsty pirate like me has difficult to surrender himself… to the such of little and accursed bunny brat like you!" Grey growled, forcing Judy to back off and lean harder against the mast.

Grey then took the evil grin to his face.

"But my congratulations, Judy. For the bunny, you're the most hard to kill than anyone else of my previous victims. Besides, Wilder was more than right about you on that night after the storm! You're sharp like the knife and spunky as any other hard-experienced sailor." Grey said and started to climb to crow's-nest, ignoring Judy's gun.

"Don't come any closer, Mr. Israel Grey, or I'll blow your brains out!" The sweaty Judy threatened.

"Ooh, really?" Israel Grey said as he revealed his sharp claws of his right paw's fingers.

"I don't think so, dumb cabin bunny!" Grey growled and unexpectedly he lunged at Judy and before Judy managed to react to it by firing with her gun, the fox quickly swung his claws towards Judy's face.

Grey's sharp claws scratched three painful and bleeding wounds to the left side of Judy's head and knocked at the same time her last pistol out of her paws, which fell over the edge and fell down.

Judy was now at the mercy of the merciless fox pirate.

Meanwhile, After Ben had already blow up eight grenades in the air, he wanted to see how big the explosion would be if he try the same with the one powder keg.

So, he rushed to the armory to pick one powder keg and chosed the perfect one, which was both big and small enough for him to carry it with the both hands and throw it into the air with his own muscular strength without any difficulties.

Ben took one slowmatch from the armory and put it partialy into the powder keg's hole and lit it on fire with the lantern's candle's flame.

Then he grabbed the powder keg with both of his hands and prepared to throw it to the air.

"This is going to be fun and…" Ben said eagerly, and swung the powder keg over of his head.

However, Ben swung the powder keg over of his head too fast that its weight pulled the barrel and at the same time also Ben violently backwards, and the hasty move and the weight of the powder keg together caused Ben, despite his best efforts to stay in balance, to lose his balance and Ben fell over on his back to the deck.

However, the powder keg slipped from his fingers and rolled rolled backwards until it stopped… just right to the main mast to where Ben had gathered the big number of the powder kegs in the pile around of the main mast.

"Whoops. Fire in the hole." Ben shouted innocently as he rushed to the cover.

At the same time in the crow's-nest, Grey had grabbed with both of his clawed paws from Judy's throat and brutally pinning her down to the edge of the crow's-nest that her head was over the edge, while he squeezed his fingers together around of Judy's throat.

Judy struggled in panic in Grey's strangling grip but she was unable to fight back in any way against the bigger and stronger fox. Her thoughts were stopped and she could barely even breath as she felt the fox's clawed fingers squeezing more and more harder around of her throat.

Judy felt how the life was escaping from her body as the fox's squeezing grip went even tighter and tigher, whiuch eventually led her to went limp due to the partial lack of oxygen.

Suddenly, one of Grey's paws let go of her throat but picked the ax from his belt, which Grey raised above of his head in intention to finally split the bunny's head in half.

The limp Judy barely managed to dodge the ax in Grey's a squeezing grip and when it got stuck in the wooden edge of the crow's-nest, Judy lifted her legs and kicked surprisingly and as hard as she could Grey to his stomach, causing him him to let go from both Judy's neck and the axe's handle- Judy's kick also nearly sent him to fall over the edge of the nest and fall down from the mast. Grey managed to grab from the edge of the crow's-nest and leaned himself to the shrouds.

Judy coughed heavily after getting finally free from the fox's strangling grip, but quickly gasped in horror that the fox wasn't yet finished off and leaned against the mast as the fox climbed back to the nest.

Grey crowled loudly at her with the savage expression in his face and his extended claws diged into the wooden foothold of the nest.

And when he raised his right hand from the behind of his back, he revealed to Judy that he was holding in his paws the nasty-looking and wide-bladed sailor knife.

"Chew this, damned bunny!" Grey barked and threw the knife towards Judy!

The knife hit and dug its way through of Judy's left shoulder, causing the bunny's eyes widen in shock and pain, and as Judy closed her eyes, the loud scream in pain and agony, which pleased Grey as he had finally got the bunny to scream in pain.

Suddenly, the powerful explosion on the deck and beneath of the main mast shook violently the entire ship, causing Grey nearly to lose his balance on the shrounds and the edge of the crow's-nest. And much to both's, Judy's and Grey's horror, the main mast began to swing dangerously and eventually – after the loud and the ominous sounding sound of in half snapping wood, wwhich came from beneath of both of them – the main mast began slowly but certainly to fall towards of the ship's bow deck.

Grey eventually lost his grip from the shrouds and the edge of the crow's nest and fell down from the mast. But Judy, who was pinned – and kind of nailed - to the mast by Grey's knife, fell down with the mast.

She was unable to pull the knife out by herself due to being greatly exhausted and because of the pain waves, weakened, until Captain Flint suddenly came out from nowhere and helped Judy to pull the knife out from Judy's flesh, freeing Judy from the mast.

Flint then grabbed from Judy and leaped from the crow's-nest towards the bow mast, landing quite hard, and painfully to Judy, to bow mast's own crow's-nest as the main mast fell to the deck, snapping in half of some the bow deck's raw yards from the starboard side and smashing everything which was beneath of the falling main mast.

Also the main mast broke in two immediately when it disastrously hit to the deck. Luckily, the most part of the main mast had fell overboard into the water, leaving only the lower part of the mast to lay on the smashed deck, so with the exception of the destruction the fallen mast had caused, it would not quite difficult to clean the deck up from this mess by pushing/carrying the the lower part of the mast overboard... but after when the first mess with the pirates was at first dealed off.

Holding with her paw from her bleeding wound in her left shoulder and groaning in pain, Judy took the look down to the deck and to the water, frantically searching for Grey with her eyes.

But, however, there was no any sign of the fox, leaving to Judy to wonder or believe that Israel Grey had either got killed either in the fall from the high place or then he was crushed by the falling mast. But because his body was nowhere to seen – not floating motionless in the water nor lying crushed under the mast - his fate was left open to Judy and Captain Flint.

Whatever happened to him, Judy pushed these thoughts aside due to having yet the more important things to deal off.

But before that, Judy turned her weak but grateful smile towards the monkey.

"Thanks Flint." Judy thanked weakly to Flint.

"Juicy?" The familiar voice suddenly shouted from bellow the mast, catching Judy's attention and she turned to look down to the deck.

It was Ben Yax, unharmed but surprisingly furious for unknown reason.

"The powder is removed from the ship, captain Juicy, sir!" Ben shouted.

"But by Old Ben's tail, Old Ben curses the one who ever came up with those loud metallic sticks and with those explosive balls! Someone needs to teach to the others that the such toys are not for the playing nor messing around!" Ben furiously added.

Judy shook her head in amuse, not having heart to tell Ben that he actually did so... played and messed around with the pistols and grenades... plus powder, which was probably the reason why the main mast suddenly snapped in half from the lower part of the mast and fell down.

Judy eventually started to climb down from the bow mast through the shroads, groaning in pain on her way to the deck due to her bad and still bleeding wound in her left shoulder and her sore knee.

And after she eventually reached to the deck, she began to walk - or more likely limp - towards Ben with the weak but quite victorious smile on her face.

But suddenly, she let the loud yelp in pain out from her mouth as the new and burning wave of pain from her sore knee took over her leg, after she took with it too hasty and reckless step forward. The wave of pain was so great that Judy gave up to it and was about to fall over to the deck.

"Juicy!" Ben exclaimed as he, without any hesitation, quickly rushed to Judy's aid and quickly grabbed badly wounded bunny into his arms preventing her to fall over to the deck and hurt herself more... and in particular, hurt her badly injured left shoulder into worse as it was already at the moment. Judy collapsed on the yak's arms and leaned against him for while, for a period of wave of pain in her left leg which caused her to grit her teeth in pain. Judy also let out the another yelp in pain and gritted her teeth harder as she felt another wave of pain in her shoulder after it moved a little bit backwards as it leaned against the yak's body.

As the wave of pain, slowly but certainly, faded away from her leg and her shoulder, Judy slowly and weakly rose back on her feet.

"I'm fine, Ben." Judy said weakly, as she tried her best to ignore her pains.

"I got the map. Let's just get out of here and back to the others." Judy said, as the new but a bit lighter wave of pain run along of her upper body from her left shoulder, making her groan in pain and nearly causing her to fall on her knees.

"Old Ben is disagreed with that that you're fine, Juicy. You're wounded and that's not a small scratch!" Ben protested, watching in shock and worry Judy's shirt, which was from around of her left shoulder turned into red from the bleeding blood.

"We have to get back to others in the cave, Ben. If we get back to your cave right now and get the map into the safety... far away from Wilder's greed fingers... we gain the upper paw over the pirates. But before we go, I go get at first Otterton's medical supplies from the stateroom for treating Susan's wounds, and then we can leave." Judy said, groaning again in pain as it was gonna get worse, despite her efforts to fight it back.

"It took from us almost an hour to get from the cave here. It may take now probably two long hours to get back to the cave." Ben said with the protesting tone.

"How you're in the world gonna get back to the cave if you bleed so much and you can barely even stand on your feet?"

Judy, however, ignored this, telling to Ben that she was fine. Judy then rip her shirt's on the left sleeve off and wrapped it around of her wound, as tightly as she could, so that it would block the bleeding.

"Get the boat ready, I'll get Otterton's medical supplies, and then we leave." Judy said and departed to captain's stateroom.

* * *

 **I hoped that all of you that read this chapter enjoyed of reading this chapter.**

 **Well, I then published this earlier that what I'd planned, but who cares.**

 **The eleventh chapter is on its way and soon out as soon as I got it finished.**

 **See ya.**


	11. Chapter 11: It's Called a Hustle

**HELLO AGAIN, READERS, FAMS AND FOLLOWERS OF TREASURE TROPOLIS.**  
 **it is time to continue where we left off**  
 **Because TRASURE TROPOLIS eleventh chapter is now out!**  
 **Enjoy.**

* * *

Because of Judy's injury, which seemed to slowly getting worse, the job of rowing the boat back to the shore was left to Ben's task.

At first, the yak wasn't pleased of this, because it was he to who Judy left the most of the rowing duty after they stole the boat from the pirates camp and rowed through the river and the laggoon to the ship. Judy had explained to Ben the reason why he had to do the most of the job, was that because she was the smartest one of their duo – actually trio, counting Captain Flint in – and that she had to stand in the bow of the boat and check that was their way to the ship clear or not. She was also the head of their sucesseful mission, so Ben had to do excatly what she said.

However, the yak agreed to do the rowing job due to his full understanding of Judy's near-unability to even mover her left arm because of her critical wound.

The trio, after the long way back to the island and the river, returned slowly and silently to the pirates camp, where Judy was almost waiting to see the light of the campfire and hear the loudly snoring pirates around of the it.

Morning began to dawn, which would know for them the difficulties to get a pass of the little by little waking pirates

But when they arrived to the camp, they found out that it was to their surprise demolished, the campfire was extinguishedand and the whole area abandoned... even the remaining boats were missing - and there was no sign about the pirates. They were probably waked by one of their own after noticing one of the longboats missing and the pirates were probably searching them from the beach and the jungle.

But why the camp was demolished, that was the big question which bothered Judith's mind.

However, Judith knew that probably most of the remaining pirates were surely still watching the entrance of Ben's cave.

Judy a bit considered their best possibilities to row the rest of the river back to the waterfall's pool and sneak back to the cave through of the underwater tunnel behind of the waterfall, but because of the ancient sluice gate, of which Ben mentioned back in the cave before she, he and Flint took off to this mission, was still open, the strong underground flows would make attempt a life-threatening due to the high risk to be drown. Besides, if that woodchuck pirate was still in his watching post and the guards were doubled, there was no way they could sneak into the pool and the underwater cave without being undetected.

And because of the pirates, trying to go the shortcut through the jungle to the hill and Ben's cave was still as dangerous.

However, Judy decided to take the risk and take a shortcut through of the jungle back to the cave, no matter about the pirates in the jungle or their guards near of the cave.

They just needed to get back to the cave and take the doctor's bag to Otterton, so he would be able to help badly wounded Susan, the other members of the crew badly wounded in the battle and her own wound.

The return trip through the jungle to the cave wasn't so easy that Judy thought.

She could barely even walk because of the bad wound in her leg caused by Israel Grey's ax, which bothered her walking with the burning waves of pain. And yet she was weakening in every passing minute due to still bleeding wound in her shoulder.

Judy even felt herself sick. She was dizzy and she had difficulty to stay upright, and such of feeling sick nearly caused her to throw up.

Seeing this, Ben offered to carry her in his arms the rest of the way to the cave, but Judy stubbornly refused for his help and forbade Ben from helping her, with the very cheap excuse that she was fine and she's able to make it back to the cave.

However, after several steps ahead, she eventually winced in pain which took over her wounded leg, causing it to gave up and Judy collapsed to the ground.

Bne quickly rushed to hera id.

"Old Ben carries you the rest of the way and Old Ben does not listen anymore Juicy's "buts." Ben declared and wrapped his arms around of Judy's waist and lifted her to his left shoulder.

Captain Flint grabbed from Otterton's bag and started to carry it for Judy.

After carrying Judy for while, until they had to make the quick stop next to the river, where Ben dropped him gently on her back lying on the ground, after which Ben visited on the river, where he took some fresh and drinkable river water to the wooden cup he always carried with him and came back to Judy, offering the cub and the water to her, which Judy accepted and drank without objection.

Ben had in fact filled two wooden cubs with the water. As Judith drank the another one, Ben ripped her shirt from the area of her wound in her shoulder – and after having the one look at it, Ben twisted his nose in disgust after realizing that the wound was really nasty looking.

Although Ben was not a doctor, he knew that he had to do something so that the wound does not get any worse – as it seemingly was in the beginning of suppuration – and that Judy would take the pain until they get back to the cave and to Otterton, so that he can help her and her wounds. Then, Ben poured the water from the cub on the wound in order to wash it to clean and to prevent any possible inflammation.

The cold water flowed over of her wound, painfully poignant wave of pain took over of her shoulder, which caused Judy to wince and grit her teeth in pain.

After washing it, Ben wrapped the tore part of Judy's shirt around of the wound.

It was all what he was able to do for her and the rest were doctor's territory.

Ben eventually helped Judy up on her feets, with a reminder that they had to get back to the cave before the pirates would find them, or that before her wounds get worse. To that, half-weakened and sweaty Judy nodded weakly but refused to be carried in the shoulder like the such helpless lady to be rescued.

After walking over an hour, Judy and Ben finally reached to the border of the jungle and to the feets of the hill in top of which Ben's cave was standing.

Their mission had successed. Risking their own lives, they had managed to retake the ship back, well at least most of it, received both a doctor's bag for Otterton and the wounded ones and especially the map.

The luck was totally on their side.

Judy, Ben and Flint rushed up the hill towards the cave as fast as they were able to move due to Judy's wounds but the triumphant expressions on their faces.

Until another confusion filled their faces after they were about to step inside of the cave and they noticed that anyone of their crew neither none of Leodore's remaining guards weren't in the watch in the entrance of the cave. Otherwise they would have noticed them from outside of the cave in the brigh light of the full moon.

They were also a bit confused by the fact that there was no any sight of pirates standing in their guard in the border of the jungle guarding Ben's cave...

But they, especially Judy, didn't even care now when the map was in their paws.

Once they were in the night dark cave, which was certainly due to the fact that their people had extinguished their campfire and went to sleep, Ben helped Judy next to the place where they left Susan and Otterton, and they were probably sleeping because the spot where the otters were left was under the darkness of the cave.

"Doc! Captain! Doc, wake up! We're back and I got the map." Judy said, weakly but her tired eyes full of the joy and restored hope and the smile on her face.

Suddenly, much to her surprise, the loaded pistol unexpectedly appeared out of the shadows, aiming at both of er and surprised Ben. And after the pistol, out of the shadowss appeared the blackened and clawed paw which was holding from the pistol's handled and the finger next to its trigger. And after the pistol and black paw, the very familiar face of the one-eyed fox appeared appeared from the shadows as well, the sly teeth-baring grin on his face.

Judy's eyes widened as she recognized the fox.

"Wilder?!" Judy exclaimed in shock and confusion.

"Surprise, Carrots. Did you have a nice trip out there?" Wilder tountingly asked from Judith.

"Nice that you have returned, Fluff. We've been waiting for you."

They heard the taunting laugh from everywhere in the darkness, as the several torches right behind of them were lit to illuminate the entire cave.

"SURPRISE!" Someone or some suddenly loudly shouted from unison all around of them.

Judy, Flint and Ben looked behind of them and spotted that Otterton, Susan, Fabienne, Peter, Jack and White Fang were herd to the corner near of the cave's entrance. They were all tightly tied from their legs, their wirsts and around of their upper bodies and their mouths were gagged and they were surrounded and under of the guard of six Wilder's pirates.

Now-one-eyed leopard pirate and the badger pirate were holding the torches in their paws while the spotted hyena pirate, female cheetah pirate, cape-dog pirate and woodchuck pirate were helding their prisoners with the gunpoint aiming at the side of the each prisoners heads or pressing the tops of the daggers in their paws to their throats or under of their chins.

Around each prisoner's neck had also tied the noose, which were pulled to tight around of each prisoners necks and the ropes of the nooses around of the prisoners necks went over the large wooden timber above of the prisoners and the rope was attached to something in the cave's wall. The nooses were probably tied and pulled tight around of their friends necks as the certainly effective warning for them to not do any sudden and foolish moves or else…"

And then, Judy, Flint and Ben looked from side to side in the panic-like confusion and much to their horror, they soon found themselves to be surrounded by the rest of the still living pirates, who unexpectedly appeared out of the shadows and threateningly approached towards them from everywhere. Some of them were aiming them with the pistols and muskets and some of them were holding the daggers in their paws and the rest of them were ready to crab to them with the bare hands.

The trio realized to their horror that they were blindly and foolishly walked straight into an ambush and trap set by Wilder and his pirates for them to inside of Ben's cave, inside of their best and the very last defensive position, which was now somehow taken over by all what was left from Wilder's pirates from the previous conflicts while they were gone .

The pirates were all of time hiding in the cave's darkness, waiting for them to step into their trap and the right opportunity to set their trap into action, so that they could unexpectedly cut off all escape routes out of the cave from the trio.

"Thanks for showing us the way in, girl." One of the pirates tauntingly thanked Judy.

Despite her serious injuries, the map was still in her possession, and she would gladly die than let them have it into their filthy fingers, so Judy tried to run away from the pirates circle.

Taking example of Judy's sudden move, Ben rushed to another direction to distract some pirates.

"Get them!" Wilder ordered his men.

From the pirates, Vincent and Redfur rushed after Judy and both of them grabbed to her roughly with their clawed paws and they didn't cared about Judy's wounds and her cries of pain if their roughly pulled from Judy's badly wounded shoulder's arm or squeezed with the brute force and painfully their harsh grasps around of Judy's wounds to make her scream louder in pain.

Angered by this, Captain Flint tried to defend Judy and lunged his teeth ahead towards Vincent, bitting fiercely from the grizzly bear's butt.

Vincent roared loudly in pain, letting briefly go from Judy's right arm. After he released his grip from Judy's arm, Captain Flint attacked to Vincent's faces, bravely and fiercely beating the grizzly bear's faces to bruised with his tiny fists. But Vincent, however, eventually managed to grab to the monkey from his flaccid neck and violently tossed the monkey asside and grabbed again from Judy's right arm with the Redfur.

Judy tried her best to struggle herself free but the predatory pirates harsh grib and the burning waves of pain in the area of her wounds were too strong for her.

"Leave her alone! Don't you see that she's…" Otterton tried to say to stop them from hurting Judith, until the female cheetah suddenly pulled once and hard from his noose, tightening it around of Otterton's neck and painfully silencing him.

Meanwhile, the rest of the pirates were seizing Ben, who's escape was cutt off as Mbaya, the rhino and boar pirates and Croco were all together roughly jumped over him, pinning the yak under of their weight.

And after they get up, Finnick had rushed to Ben as the others held him with the gunpoint,

"Hey! What's this pathetic and stinking yak?!" Finnick tauntingly asked as he pinned Ben down to the ground with the raccoons.

"Not to Old Ben's face!" Ben yelled in panic after getting growling Finnick's dagger to his left cheek as the raccoons started to tie him up.

After the pirates had gained the upper paw over the entire crew, who was now held as the prisoners, Wilder then walked towards Judy.

"You're just like me, Carrots. Both of us hates to lose," Wilder stated with a chuckle and smugly smirking at Judy as she struggled in the pirates grip.

Judy weakly looked around after the pirates forced her painfully on her knees before Wilder.

There was not all of them. Leodore and his soldiers were gone.

"How did you get here without being seen? And where's Leodore and his remaining soldiers?" Judy asked from Wilder, although she absolutely didn't care about rude Leodore being missing.

"My men caught the coward lion trying to sneak away from the cave with his men. We were about to kill him until he revealed to us the secret underwater tunnel hidden under the nearby waterfall's pool, which led underneath of the solid rock 'till to this cave. And in order to get here, he also voluntarily revealed to us how to control the underwater tunnel's underground flows and itself water level with the ancient sluice gate in the cliff above of us. So, after the tunnel was nearly completely empty of water, we were able to march through of it into the cave undetected. And after the cave was taken over and all of you – well, except you and your dumb yak friend until now, were captured, we were able to move our camp from the riverbank to here." Wilder explained.

"And all thanks for the cowardly lion, the governor Leodore, who kindly and kind of (brief silence) sold all of you to me in exchange for his own freedom. It's called a good business, sweetie." Wilder said mockingly front of Judy's faces.

Judy could not believe her ears. Leodore and his remaining men had just abandoned them all – and even worst as Wilder just said, sold them - to the certain death in the hands of these bloodthirsty pirates in exchange for his own life.

"And I do not bother to ask, where you were and why you weren't here when we came. Because I know already everything. First, I noticed that one of our longboats was missing back in our camp in the riverbank. Wasn't that you who stole the longboat, Carrots? If you were, then SHEESH! And I though that the rabbits never steal anything from anyone because they're "too honest" for that." Wilder taunted, which caused several of his pirates to laugh tautingly.

"Anyway, after we get here, with the help of Mr. Scaredy Cat, and captured everybody, Dr. Otterton already tried to tell me that the map was not even in your possession. At first, I didn't believe any words he was saying to me until we had gone through the whole cave and we didn't found the map from here. And then, I believed at first that you had sneaked away from the cave in the darkness of night with the map because you weren't here when we arrived. I was like "Did the bunny get cold feet?" until Otterton added that you were obviously looking for medical needs, what he needes so badly for his wounded otter girlfriend."

"It one thing yet. I have to grant you that, it was… quite… sly trick from you, Carrots, trying to use my belief, that the map was in your possession, as an advantage to get upper paw over of me and my men by trying to buy some more time for your group by threatening to burn the map into the dust if anyone of us "bilge rats" dares to attack you and your group yet again like yesterday. Tricking me like that and taking an advantage from my false belief was really a goot bet from you Carrots, for the Bunny, but I also happened to learn from Otterton that you had accidentally left the map back in the ship because Captain Flint tricked you to believe that you still had the map in your possession when you narrowly escaped from the mutiny in Zoopaniola."

"But to be honest, after I noticed one of our longboats missing, my first guess was you trying to sneak to the ship and leave us here to rot into skeletons and my reaction was go back to ship to take it back from you But after we took the cave in our possess and learned that neither you nor the map were not here but me knowing that you will come back with the map, I decided to stay here to wait and while waiting for you I arranged a welcome party for you alone. And here you are... you came to me just like on a tray."

You see, Carrots? You played well, but unfortunately, in the spoof-game, such like this one, the sly Fox is always a winner slyness. So to speak, It's called a sweet hustle, sweetheart." Wilder said.

Judy scowled at Wilder in anger that she almost ignored her pains. But knowing that everything is lost, Judy closed her eyes and lowered her head down in defeat, until Redfur grabbed with his huge paws from Judy's jaws into the squeezing grasp and grabbed with his another free paw from her ears, pulling her head roughly backwards, making her in process to yelp and grit her teeth in pain, so that her eyes were on Wilder, as he kneeled down in front of Judy.

"Even though I'm now fully aware of this, you were in the ship searching the map for me, didn't you? Judging by your appearance, it was not a nice reunion with Israel Grey who I left to watch over Zoopaniola, huh? But my congratulations, you still made it back... and probably yet with the map. My congratulations doubly for that. And now..." Wilder said as he extended his paw towardas Judy asking for the map.

"My map, if you please?" Wilder demanded and nodded to Vincent and Redfur as an silent order to release Judy.

Judy slowely raised her head and just scowled at Wilder the hatred in her eyes as Wilder's own gentle expression on the fox's face slowly hardened and he scowled back at her impatiently.

Wilder then extended his righgt paw towards Redfur, who handed to him loaded pistol and by his nod, the pirates removed the nooses from around of the prisoners neck and moved all of them as hostages in the line next to them.

Then Wilder turned back to Judy.

"My map, or which one of them?" Wilder demanded again, pointing with the pistol each one of the prisoners, aiming them to the heads.

Judy's eyes widened in shock. The sudden hostage-situation made her completely speechless and unaware of what to do next.

Wilder then impatiently slapped her hard across the face with his free paw, completely turning her head to the left side. And by his nod, Redfur grabbed from Judy's ears and lifted her a little bit up from the ground, causing Judy to grit her teeth in pain yet again. Redfur then grabbed roughly from her cheeks like Vincent had just done to her and turned her head harshly to the prisoners.

"As I told you, Carrots. I'm always trying to avoid the needless bloodshed as possible. But you're seemingly leaving me with no choice." Wilder said, taking the pistol's safety off and aiming with it at Susan, much to Otterton's horror.

"I'd get busy," Wilder warned.

"So for the very last time. My map or the doctor's girlfriend or the doctor himself?"

Judy's attention then turned from Wilder to Otterton's and the rest of the crew. She was shocked about of Wilder thratening her by killing one of her friends, if not all one by one, if she does not surrender the map to him. She also felt herself dressed with the right moves and the decisions which could either save her friends' lives or sentence them to death in Wilder's paws.

Judy watched helplessy at each one crew members for their lives pleading eyes and Susan's and Otterton's about Susan's life worried look in his faces, even though he knew that it would be pointless after the pirates have received what they wanted, leaving their lives worthless for the pirates, who could quite easily release them from their misery with a bullet to their heads.

Susan, however, didn't showed any sign of fear for her life – not even a single tear running down on her cheeck – even though she was so close of her death in Wilder's paws.

Judy guessed that perhaps Susan wasn't afraid for her own life... but more likely for Otterton's life, as her head was slightly turned to Otterton every time as Wilder pointed at him with his pistol. Judy could swear that she saw a glimpse of the weakly in the torches light shining tear resting in the gap between of Susan's the eyelids.

Her friends pleading eyes left Judy with no alternate choice.

As Wilder was about to pull the trigger and fire with his pistol Susan's brains out...

"Wait! Fine, fine, fine, Wilder! You won! As you said yourself you do not like bloodshed, so then don't then anybody's blood because of your obsession over of some stupid map." Judy yelled as sign of giving up to save her friends lives and Redfur released his grip from Judy's ears and cheeks.

Wilder stopped aiming at Susan with the pistol which he lowered down and handed to another pirate and once again extended his paw towards Judy. Judy then put her owwn paw inside to her pocket and dag out a wrapped map, handing it over to Wilder's paw.

"That's the stuff, Carrots! Wasn't it so difficult, wasn't it?" Wilder asked tauntingly from Judy and then turned his back to her to check the map more closer.

"Tied her up and leave her with the others and under the guard while we…" Wilder said to his men opening the map, only finding out it to be just the blank piece of paper...

...Except that in the center of the paper was wrote the taunting word "GOTCHA!"

Wilder was dumbfounded after reading this taunting word in middle of the paper.

"What is this?! This isn't the map I asked for! Where's the REAL map!" Wilder blow out in confusion and rage, angrily turning back to Judy.

Suddenly, Captain Flint jumped on Judy's good shoulder, handing over to her the another wrapped paper.

"It's right here." Judy said, smug and sly smile on her face.

Wilder angrily threw the blank paper aside and tried to reach to the real map with his clawed map and barking angrily at Judy nearly with the feral expression on his face...

...suddenly, with the sly grin on her face, Judith opened the map before Wilder managed to get his claws on her.

And what happened to next, badly surprised Wilder, all his pirates, Ben, Captain Flint and Susan's crew... except Judy, Otterton, because they're both already both experienced and witnessed this amazing event back in home long ago before this entire voyage.

Also, much to Judy's surprise, Susan did not seemed to be surprised as well as she and Otterton, probably due to the fact that Susan is obviously in her private premises – only Otterton and Mr. Bogo as her only companions on that moment – revealed to herself the map's secret and experienced the same process in order to make a note of the ship route from the home port to this island with the help of this mysterious map.

It all began from the green and blue lights, which shot out from the paper immediately once the map was completely opened, turning immediately the cave in the green-black darkness. With the lights, there was also some unnatural blow of the wind, which blowed the pirates torches off.

In shock and surprise, the pirates immediately backed off, murmuring with each others that it was eitheer the map which was accursed with the some black magic or then the bunny has somehow became the witch and was using the witchcraft against them.

"Ladies and gentlemen, look at and be amazed!" Judy humorously exclaimed as she watched this with the wide grin this whole thing, which did not seemed any more odd in her eyes and didn't freaked her out like it did the last time.

The green and blue lights fluttered out from the paper into the airspace of the entire cave and then poured across the cave, forming to the floor the same cloud-like a holographic map like back in Leodore's country house. But this time, It formed into the form of the island covered by the green palm tree jungle and surrounded by the bright Caribbean Sea, and yet with the couple mountains in middle of the island and with the several clouds above of the island.

After the island was formed, and it's glowing lights in the colors of green, blue and the white filled the entire cave, Wilder was completely amazed as he recognized the island as the TREASURE TROPOLIS, the iskland on where they were right at the moment.

"Oh, the powers that be. Would you look?" Wilder exclaimed.

The pirates gathered a bit courage into themselves to dare to come closer to see this.

They were really amazed as they realized that everything in the holographic map seemed to be somehow alive, as one of them spotted the flock of seagulls flying over the island and some of them felt the weak blow of the wind even. One of them spotted the same laggoon to where they had anchored the ship and the same river, which led their eyes to their old camp place in the riverbank and to the same rock, where the waterfall's pool and this cave were.

"I've experienced this once before. It formed back then into the some kind of cloud-like holographic map of the entire Caribbean Sea and it somehow showed us the ship route from our home port to this island, which was marked on the map with as an empty hole, and empty hole happened to be in fact the this map and the whole area around of it." Judy explained.

Ben also moved a bit closer, as amazed as the pirates.

Judy also spotted that out of nowhere above of the holographic map's island formed some kind of holographic writings in the ancient language of the zooztecs, which started to slowly circle around of the island's holographic mountains. Their glowing lights suddenly bounced off from the writings to different spots of the holographic map like the beams of the sunlight. They formed secretly to the pirates, while the floating writings were distracting them, the route, which led from the cave further to the island through of the same river's side river, Then a small distance across the jungle to the feet of the mountain and suddenly stopped on its feets.

Probably the place where was Flint's trove... although Judy was a bit confused that why the treasure hunt was made so boringly easy for them, after all... and yet she was expecting some challenges.

But yet, there was one, no, two challenges ahead of her, these writings in the ancient language she wasn't able to translate and yet these pirates.

"Hey, Old Ben thinks that Old Ben knows something and even the meanings of these writings." Ben said with the whispering tone.

He finally obeyed Judy's first direct command to be silent and talk in whispering ever since they first met back in the jungle, even though they were on the situation where the whispering would not much help them anymore.

However, Judy's sensitive sense of hearing managed to catch everything what the yak just said.

 _So, that half-brained yak really knows something about these writings, even their meanings in our language?_ Judy asked from herself in heer mind as Ben noticed her starring at him with the wondering expression on her face.

Obeying Judy's direct order, Ben was able to only shrug his shoulders as the question "What?"

However, the sly grin appeared on Judy's lips.

 _Ben, you're genius!_ Judy congratulated him in her mind, even though she couldn't believe that she never would have said something like that about Ben.

But there it was. Despite being captured by the pirates and being soon forced to surrender the real map into Wilder's paws, Judy had found the solution to get two birds with one stone. Ben was her a new advantage to gain the upper paw over the pirates or then just out of nowhere appeared opportunity to buy some extra lives for her and her friends in the paws of the pirates.

And, Judy also got an idea how she was gonna use Wilder's own slyness against him.

Wilder turned from the map to Judy.

"You said that this map led us to this island, right? If so, then is there any chance that it would lead us also unto the treasure?" Wilder asked with the impatient tone.

However, he failed to see the smug expression and grin on Judy's face.

"Yes, Wilder. There is a chance tha tthe map can lead us unto the treasure." Judy answered.

"But..." She suddenly said ans quickly wrapped the map into the scroll.

And when she did so, there was another unnatural and strong hurricane-like flurry inside of the cave, which kind of sucked the whole holographic map back into the paper, which started to glow the green-white light during of the map's disappearing, just like back in Leodore's house.

Just like Judy, Otterton and her mother reacted during of their first experienced with this mysterious and highly unnatural thing, the pirates quickly backed off in fear as they realized that the unnatural hurricane-like flurry was surprisingly pulling everything bulk material, from the small to big ones, from lying on the floor, from the corners of the cave and from leaning against the walls towards the glowing paper with the holographic map, including themselves. This caused every pirate to rush quickly far away from the paper in panic and they grabbed quickly from something to hold on, holding with the another paw from their hats, to prevent themselves from getting sucked into the paper by the unnatural flurry, which seemed to strengthen in every moment.

Eventually, the holographic map has completely vanished, including the unnatural flurry, into the paper and the glowing in the paper's surface faded away and their torches lit up again on fire, illuminating the cave again.

As the pirates sighed in relief and climbed back on their feet, Wilder turned back to Judy and so did his men, who were angered by the fact that Judy's reckless act nearly got them killed and they were about to attack all at the same time to bunny...

...until much to their horror, he saw that Judy had grabbed to the dropped torch and that she was holding the map above of its fire, forcing the greed-filled pirates and Wilder to back of or else she carries out her earlier false threat to burn the map into to dust by burning the map into the dust for real in this time.

"WHATTA DEVIL YOU'RE DOING, CARROTS?!" Wilder esclaimed in shick and anger.

"If you want the map, Wilder, then you have to listen MY terms." Judy answered.

Wilder looked at bunny a bit in confusion, noticing now ther sly grin on her face.

"Did you really think that the empty, demolished and abandoned camp base in the riverbank didn't arouse my doubts about the possible ambush in the cave, and you and your "pilge-rats" ironically happened to prove my doubts right. Anyway, I did give the real parts of the map to Captain Flint and switched the real one with Captain Flint's earlier COTCHA-paper to replace it to trick you, Wilder."

"As you said, Wilder. We still have the possibility of cooperation between of the groups. So, before I switched the map with Flint's fake map, I showed the map's writings, which I had noted down just in case, to my yak friend Ben, "the one who has the memory of the elephant" or at least he said so. He also revealed surprisingly to me that he was long time ago one of the zooztecs, civilized one at least, who eventually turned to pirate under the famous Captain Flint's command. However, Ben also let me a moment ago to know that he knows well the writings on the map which are written in the zooztec language and that he can translate their meanings to us in zoonglish. Besides, Ben has lived as marooned on this island for so long that he knows every corner, every river, every spot of this island."

Judy's speech drove the pirates into confusion

"So, if we, not only you and your bilge-rats but all of us, me and my friends including, are going to find this treasure together with the help of this mysterious map, you're gonna need Ben to guide you even close of the famous trove and I'm going to come with him too and you have to take all of us with you unharmed and…"

Judy suddenly realized that she had forgot her wounds and the pain waves, which she had until now completely ignored due to being the prisoner of the pirates. This caused her briefly give up to the the pain on her wounded leg and hon her badly wounded and sore arm, in which she was holding the map above of the torch's fire. Groaning in pain, Judy almost dropped the map to the torch's flames, much to Wilder's pirates horror.

Unexpectedly, Ben got loose from his bounds with the help of Captain Flint, who had stole the knife to free yak's hands. Once freed, Ben quickly rushed to Judy's aid, grabbing gently of her and preventing her to fall over to the ground because of her injuries in her leg and her still bleeding wound on her left shoulder and preventing her almost accidentally burn the map, their only hope to avoid the certain death, to dust.

Ben helped Judy back to her feets and served as her support as Judy turned back to Wilder.

"But… as you see, I am not fit to travel right now… because of my wounds. If… if I do not get medical treatment, I'll die either to loss of blood or… or blood poisoning… if there... was very... slowly woking... poison in Israe Grey's... dagger before he… before he stabbed me... with it… and my death... will mean that I'll... carry out my earlier threat… to burn the map to dust... for real in this time." Judy said, with the weakening tone of voice.

"And if Juicy dies to loss of blood…" Ben started, before he grabbed the pistol from one of the pirates nearby of him and held himself at gunpoint, aiming to his own head.

"… Old Ben dies with Juicy." Ben declared, much to the prisoner's shock and pirates confusion.

"You know... y-you have no another... ch-choice, Wilder. With the map... in dust... and with Ben dead, you... y-you'll lose all of your... best chances... e-even this close... to find the treasure and yet even... e-even your chances to f-find your way back... back home, which means... th-that all of us either... either remain to rot on th-this... this island... or get lost in the sea, with no... n-no chances to f-find... b-back home... So, it is-is best for you to... t-to make the wise choice... and quickly before... before I-I'll die and I'll burn this... th-this map... in the p-process. Then Ben dies af-after me and... and you will remain h-here... without the map... w-without a guide... without interpreter and... w-with no hope to... find the tr-treasure or... or find the way... b-back home from these waters."

"And if... if you make a wise d-decision, if you agree n-not to... threaten or harm... my friends... in any way, if you... agree to h-help us find the treasure... as much as we'll help you... and if... if you agree to... to let us to keep... that part we... we have de-decided to keep... from the treasure as our reward... for our help, y-you can feel free... to keep everything else... yourself, and we... may even a-allow you... and your b-bilge-rats... to walk away freely... without we reporting about... about you and your crimes... to-to the royal navy... and we... we all shall just forget... forget that this e-ever even happened."

After Judy had listed her terms to Wilder, she then took the weak but sly and sweet smile on her face.

"As you said, It's called a sweet hustle… and a good business, sweetheart."

Wilder was standing in her place, completely amazed and dumbfounded that the bunny he had a moment ago hustled had just used his own slyness against him with the such of terms that he never would have thought of himself.

From all the pirates, Finnick was the only one who was about to burst into laught, knowing that the bunny had hustled their "sly" fox captain in front of his nose.

"She hustled you, cap'n!" Finnick chuckled, until he was unable to hold himself anf the small fennec pirate burst into hearty, yet mocking, laugh.

"SHE HUSTLED YOU, SHE HUSTLED YOU GOOD! No longer the most cunning pirate on the Caribbean Sea after he got cunningly outsmarted by bunny he just called dumb!" Finnick laughed mockingly.

When Finnick's laugh threatened to spread to the rest of the crew, they barely managed to hold themselves and keep their laugh under control after the dark savage-like scowl appeared on Wilder's face and he took out the loaded pistol, threatening to shoot one of them, starting from the one who was unable to restrain his laugh.

Wilder then considered of Judy's tems for a moment. He had an angry expression on his face after being unexpectedly outsmarted and hustled by the bunny, but his expression turned soon to the proud smile about Judy's courage to hustle the bloodthirsty pirates and then make a deal with them to form the truce and cooperation between of them.

Wilder heartily chuckled to it.

Wilder then turned to the prisoners.

"Release the doctor and give to him his medical needs!" Wilder shouted to female cheetah, who released Otterton from his bounds and removed the gag from his mouth, giving him his medical needs and brought him next to Judy.

"Make sure that she does not die to loss of blood or blood infection, Doctor. That sly little bunny and his yak friend are far too precious to be killed than I thought." Wilder said pointing at Otterton with the clawed finger.

"You have time until sunrise." He added.

Otterton got speechless after hearing this and turned immediately from Judy back to Wilder with the shocked, disgusted, angered and protesting-ready expression on his face.

"Until sunrise? Are you serious? Don't you see yourself that in what kind of condition she is at the moment. She has a leg injury, she has bad and still bleeding wound in her left shoulder and she can barely even move her left arm, and she is anyway in poor condition that she can hardly even stand up and less to travel any meters today. Besides, it's two hours to sunrise and there's no way she can fully recover from her injuries within such of limited time. I need more time to tend her wounds as well as I can and after it she needs more time to recover from her injuries that she would be able to walk. I need at least forty-eight hours." Otterton protested.

Wilder nearly angered about the fact that he had to delay the treasure hunt for two-three days for bunny to recover, but immediately kept his temper in cool.

"Alright, then. Then I'll grant you six hours." Wilder calmly suggested.

Otterton, however, snorted in disgust and disagree.

"Not enough. Absolutely not enough! Two days." Otterton demanded seriously.

Wilder took a pause to consider his chances for a while.

"What about eight hours?"

"Still not enough. two days."

What about ten?"

"Two days"

"Twelve?"

"Two days!"

"Fourteen?"

"Two days!"

"EIGHTEEN?!"

"TWO DAYS!"

"ONE DAYS?!"

"TWO DAYS!"

"ONE AND HALF?!" Wilder barked impatiently.

"FOR ONE LAST TIME WITH TWO WORDS... TWO. DAYS!" Otterton angrily and loudly snarled.

"Two days." said the weak voice from next to Wilder and Otterton, who break off from their argument to see that Judy, nearly hanging in Ben's arms, was once again holding the map over the torch's fire.

"One day to tend my injuries and one day for me to recover. It's my and Otterton's final offer to you or else... you know already that what will happen to me and Ben ans what are the consequences if you don't agree with us right now. And to make you to agree with two days for my recovering from my injures, the map stays in our possession for two days at the mercy of my torch. Remember, finding the treasure depends alone on your right choices, you dumb fox." Judy said with the weak but sly grin.

Wilder's angered expression turned into the gentle smile and hearty chuckle, as he slightly shoock his head at Judy.

Then, he lowered down at Judy's head's level.

"So, the little sly bunny wants to play this little game with the pirate rules, huh? By holding the map as an lifeless hostage and hustling the pirates in front of their noses, huh?" Wilder asked with the humorous tone.

And then, he straightened up.

"Alright, Carrots. We have a deal. Sparing yours and through of you your yak friend's, doctor's, otter captain's and her crew's lives and leaving them unharmed in exchange for the map, truce, cooperation and that yak's guidance and knowledge about the meanings of these writings in the search for the treasure. And I accept your terms by allowing you to take your own part from the treasure as your reward and we keep the rest. That's the very good busines… from the bunny." Wilder said, as he extended his paw towards her for the map.

But Judy only extended her own paw towards Wilder's paw as the sign of agreement instead of the map.

"Two days for my recovery from my injuries is part of the deal. And besides, The map is in your possess, if it remains in our possession. In the possess of your guides. You better to accept the deal by granting us two days before the day of the treasure hunt." Judy slyly reminded.

"Do we have an agreement?"

With the snort and growl in annoyance. He he clearly did not liked to be controlled by the bunny through of the map, which made the bunny smile with the knowledge that she had the upper paw over him. But also knowing that he had no another choice and absolutely unwilling to sacrifice both of the map and the lives of his upcoming guides, who were his only hope to finally fill his a lifelong dream.

"Fine." He impatiently growled.

Albeit reluctantly, Wilder eventually grabbed from Judy's paw and shook it to strengthen their agreement, before he pulled his paw back, turned to them his back and left Judy under of Otterton's care.

Wilder then turned to his men.

"We have a deal, boys! Put the prisoners back against the wall and keep them both unharmed and under the watch! Then Pack the all completed and prepare for departure within two days, because in the third-dawn… the treasure hunt shall begin!" Wilder declared to his out of excitement and enthusiasm cheering pirate crew.

Judy eventually gave up completely to her pains and collapsed to the ground, dropping the torch and the map from her paws. Ben and Otterton rushed quickly to her side and carried her weak and blood covered body to the corner of the cave far away from the pirates, where Otterton could in peace and quiet check the status of Judy's wounds and see what he can do to treat them, while Captain Flint picked the real map from the floor in case that none of Wilder's pirates could notice it and try to steal it because then they would lose their advantage and their agreement with them would be a former agreement.

However, they still were able to hear some murmuring about Judy coming out of the nearby pirates, Finnick's and Duke's mouths.

"That cabin bunny hustled the captain… our sly fox captain! It is something what doesn't happen every day." Laughed Finnick from the another side of the cave.

"She's bunny, but with the mind of the fox, I'll say." Duke said with the humorously giggling tone back to Finnick.

Otterton ignored copletely the pirates speakings about Judy and gently lowered her down with Ben against the same stone, against which Susan had lain.

"Well, that... that went well. I did... I did not only... found a map and... and your medical supplies, doc... but I also... I also managed to retake the... the ship and... at the same... at the same time managed to... to get rid of Israel Grey for good... back in the ship. And now... now I've managed... managed to make a deal... deal with the pirates to... to find the treasure together." Panting Judy congratulated herself with the weak and proud smile.

"Let us say... I got five birds with one stone." She added.

However, Otterton didn't smiled.

"You dumb bunny! Your mother would have freaked out if she would have known that you almost got yourself killed! I mean, look at yourself! It's the miracle that you're still alive after facing that savage fox! Besides, how to know that you didn't just doomed us all with that deal, young Hopps?!" Otterton scolded Judy as he wiped her sweaty head to dry, before he began to untie the sleeve Ben had tied around of her wound.

"At least… I was able to buy us... some more time." Judy answered weakly.

After untying Judy's shoulder, Otterton took the look to Judy's wound. It was really bad and nasty-look stabbing wound, yet even deep like the entire blade of the dagger had sunk into Judy's shoulder and the wound just kept bleeding. And the look of it nearly caused Ben to turn his head away and throw up.

"She has lost quite much of blood and the wound is slowly starting to suppurate." Otterton said with the worry tone and concerned expression on his face.

"Old Ben told her the whole way to back here that we had to check her wound, even though Old Ben isn't the doctor, but she didn't listen to me. Is Juicy gonna make it?" Ben asked in half-panic, and worrying for Judy's and his own life, because he was worried about the upcoming after promising to make a commit suicide if Judy doesn't make it.

"If you want to be useful, Ben, then go to get some trees, make fire and heat up something piece of metal in it. We have to burn her wound to close. I'm trying in the meantime to reduce bleeding and prevent it from inflammation any further." Otterton said.

Because no one of the prisoners wasn't allowed to leave the cave despite the deal, Ben had to find some wood from his own stuff in the cave. It took from him ten minutes to gather some good wood, which was not much, and half-rusted sword. Then Ben made quickly the fire near of Judy and started to heat up sword's blade in it.

"You're lucky, Judy. If the knife had been so rusty that it can easily break, the situation would have required nearly surgery-operation to remove the rusty piece of blade off from your flesh. But the situation would have been even worse if that accursed fox pirate had come to think to poison such of blade. Fortunately, I have antitoxin with me for a such of situations, but because I do not have a clue that what kind of poison it a pirate would have used against you - either venomous snake's or toxic toad's - and this is a long distance between the ship and the cave, I think that at this point it would have been too late to use the antitoxin." Otterton said with the concerned tode while he was still treating Judy's wound.

"You were definitely lucky bunny, Judy." Otterton added.

"Then thank goodness... th-that he was such... such of du-dumb fox. And it's not... a wonder if... some are chasing the... the ra-rabbit's foot in... in s-such of belief th-that... that they brings... the luck to th-their owners. Lucky that... that I-I got... still my... my own lucky paws." Judy weakly but humorously giggled.

After Otterton had purified Judy's wound and done everything else he was able to do for Judy, he extended his paw towards Ben asking for the sword.

However, it took for a while, nearly half an hour or forty minutes, and three or four times from Ben to heat the sword's blade and check out that was the sword's blade hot enough... and when it was, Ben took the sword from the fire and handed the sword to Otterton, who took the sword quickly from his hand.

Weak and sweaty Judy took the fearsome look at the sword's hot blade, which a metal tip glowed as a yellow and and hissed of heat.

"Help me to hold her down! Trust me, this isn't a piece of cake. When a piece of burning hot metal touches the area of the wound, especially the wound itself, the patient immediately struggles and squirms like a almost uncontrollable snake. You'll soon see what I mean. That's why I need you to hold her in place." Otterton said and both Ben and Flint both prepared to keep Judy down during of operation.

Otterton then turned to Judy.

"Not gonna lie, Judy. This is going to REALLY hurt. I know that it's difficult but I need you to stay still or this will not work." Otterton sternly warned and lovered the blade onto Judy's wound.

Judy at first gasped in pain and then she began to scream loudly in pain as soon as the burning hot blade of the sword touched her sore flesh around of her stabbing wound in her left shoulder. Among of Judy's cries of pain, there was the hissing sound and the strong scent of the burning flesh as Otterton kept pressing the hot blade against Judy's flesh around of her wound.

Ben soon realized that what Otterton meant about "the patient struggles and squirms like a almost uncontrollable snake as soon as the hot piece of metal touches the flesh around of the wound" as Judy started uncontrollably struggled and squirmed in pain on her shoulder. While Otterton held her left arm down, both Ben and Flint tried their best to keep the struggling. squirming and screaming bunny on the ground.

Out of the scene in the entrance of the cave, while looking out into the night which was slowly turning into the morning, hearing Judy's loud screams in pain in his ears caused Wilder to feel inside of him his own worry for Judy – Not only because of she and her yak friend being the precious keys of finally finding Flint's treasure, but also for the bunny's own safety and well-being. The concerned look visited on his face and he considered the idea to peek over of his left shoulder to the corner where Otterton, Ben and Flint were taking care of Judy's injuries.

He was almost ashamed of his own pirate-like treatment towards that spunky bunny, who was lying in the corner in pain after all what she had have gone through to get a map back. But Wilder knew that despite of his feeling of guilt for Judy's physical and emotional sufferings, despite he being even ashamed of his own acts of piracy and even his own and despite even his own nearly compelling desire to make up for his bad words and piracy actions to Judy, she will never forgive him easily for everything what has already happened and what could no longer be undone since what happened back in the ship's galley.

Wilder, however, started silently to ask from himself that what he was even thinking about and why he had such of feelings, concern and remorse within himself which are not common for a such of greed and bloodthirsty pirate.

However, Wilder eventually falsely hardened his expression and carefully hid his feelings and worry over the bunny's well-being because of the presence of his, still believing that there was some among of them who were still thinking that their captain had gone soft.

Otterton had to press the burning hot blade two more times against the area of Judy's wound to make sure that every spot from the edges of the wound was completely and carefully burnt together before the job was completely done.

None of these times was not an easy task due to Judy's rapid and nearly uncontrollable struggling and squirming in pain.

Eventually, the job was finally over and done.

Feeling still the burning pain from the hot blade on her burned shoulder, Judy breathed rapidly in panic-like state and her head fur was soaking wet from the sweat. She felt uncomfortable in her stomach and she was rapidly shivered in pain.

"Calm down, Judy, calm down! Deep breath! It's over now!" Otterton said to Judy in order to get the sweaty, rapidly panting and shivered bunny to calm down. in pain.

It took for a while from Judy before she finally took the deep and peaceful breath and calmed down as the pain slowly faded away from her shoulder and entire body.

However, she was so weak that she was unable to even move her paw, but there was no hurry for that because she had two full days time to rest recover from her injuries.

Otterton did his best to make Judy to feel more comfortable, by wrapping his jacked into pillow, which he carefully and gently placed behind of Judy's head and yet she covered her with his own deputy jacket, which had ironically happened to come with him to the island during of their escape from the ship and the mutiny, to keep bunny warm. And finally, he took a full bottle of water, opened its cap and carefully moved Judy's head forward and carefully placed the mouth of the bottle on Judy's lips and allowed her to have a drink or two.

After several sip of water, Otterton placed Judy's head back to lean against the pillow put the bottle of water back to its place and remained with Ben and Flint beside her to watch over her.

Eventually, the exhaustion from this night's events – from swimming in the underwater tunnels, through of fighting with Israel Grey over the ship and the map until getting her stabbing wound burnt closed – finally took Judy over that she closed her eyes and fell asleep.

"Good girl! Good girl!" Otterton whispered, rubbing sleeping Judy's forehead with his paw.

Otterton then finished his work by bandaging Judy's wounded shoulder and placed her left arm to hang in the arm sling. Because now when her arm was weak and sore as the after-effects of treatment, she had to carry it in a sling until the arm would be fully recovered.

* * *

 **I hope that you enjoyed the chapter.**

 **Well, I really enjoyed of making this chapter and make the peg-legged and one-eyed fox pirate and you spunky bunny to hustle each others in the same place in the same time to**

 **come to an arrangement with each others.**

 **twelfth chapter is on its way and is out soon.**


	12. Chapter 12: Treasure Hunt Part 1

**HELLO AGAIN TO ALL CURRENT AND UPCOMING READERS, FOLLOWERS, AND FANS!**

 **It's time to continue from where we were left on my fanction TREASURE TROPOLIS**

 **Because twelfth chapter is now out - and with the familiar scene from Zootopia film itself.**

 **Enjoy of reading.**

* * *

After Judy's half-completed recovery to her half-full strenght, even though she still had to wear the arm sling to keep her arm still...

...the treasure hunt shall begin.

After the pirates had packed everything useful in Ben's cave, they eventually abandoned the cave and brought everything, including the prisoners, to their previous camp base, where they then took in the high grass and under the palm-leaves hidden boats up and pushed them to the river.

And then, following the map's guidance, all three longboats started at first follow the river deeper into the island and the jungle.

Wilder was in the leading boat, standing in the bow of the boat with Judy, Ben and Flint while the boat was rowed forward by the raccoon brothers while Duke, Finnick, Vincent and boar pirate kept watch with the loaded pistols and muskets in case for the another marooned and eventually savaged animals or for attacks of the local natives. Unlike the rest of the prisoners, Wilder had saved a bit still recovering Judy and Ben from being tied because he needed them to led them to the treasure. However, he had tied the noose around of their necks and held them both like dogs in order to prevent them to escape.

Re-tied Dr. Otterton and captain Susan were held as hostages in the boat in the middle, which was rowed by Redfur and leopard pirate, while Croco and the rhino pirate were on the watch and spotted hyena and cape dog pirates were guarding the hostages with the gunpoint.

The last boat was loaded with all their stuff for the treasure hunt and there were also the rest of the pirates and tied Fabienne, Peter, Jack and White Fang, held with the gunpoint by Mbaya.

The map also showed the another version of its mysterious power, not as amazing that creating the holographic and living maps, but it also seemed to show to them the way with the glowing line through the island to the treasure's location as the holographic version of the island showed to Judy in Ben's cave.

However, the end of the glowing line was right on their location, so it didn't showed a straight road to the treasure, and that's why the writings in the ancient language in the map were the only guides.

As Ben translated the writings on the map – even though his concentration wandered at times to other things like showing from the map the places he had visited to Judy – Judy guided Wilder to keep following the river until their arrives to the river border of the area of the ancient ruins, which are covered by the vegetation of the jungle.

It took less than a couple of hours at least...

...until they eventually arrived to the mentioned border, which appeared to be the small lake in middle of the jungle and which was separated from the river with the ancient gate-like and ruined wall made by the stone and covered by the vegetation and the open gate hole, on both sides of it was standing two large and roaring stone jaguar statues holding in their paws the native spears like their were guarding the gate.

"Hey, pal. Your watch's over a long time ago." Vincent said mockingly before he raised his pistol and fired the shot aimed to the statue's head. The hit from the bullet got the statue's lower jaw to break off and fall to the river.

"Whoops! Did you lose your jaw." Vincent added with the false and mocking-like apology, which got the rest of the pirates to laugh at this "so-funny" joke.

Judy was disgusted at this that those damn pirates had no respect for something so ancient like those ancient statues.

"Desecrators." Judy mumbled silently.

In fact, Judy a bit hoped that those pirates would face the jaguar guards, which are real flesh and blood instad of solid stone, and even savaged. Then they might be able to respect the ancient stuff when they recover from the jaguar's bite or claw marks on their butts.

As they entered to the lake between of the stone jaguar guards, they immediately saw that the gloving line was turning its direction on the map and heading to the lakeside on the boats left side. And as they turned their heads to the direction, they all spotted that in its lakeside was standing seemingly the long-abandoned, ruined and very ancient stone structures surrounded by the palm trees and, like the ruined wall and the jaguar statues - covered by the jungle vegetation for centuries. Probably the ancient dwellings of the local natives who had lived on this island long ago before captain Flint had found the island...

...and, who knows, probably slaughtered the natives.

They eventually came ashore to the lakeside in middle of those ruined dwelling, which partially touched the lake, telling to Judy that it was either because of high tide or else this settlement was slowly sinking into the lake as if it was slow slow but still active sinkhole, which had consumed roughly over half of this settlement and then was filled with rain water for centuries.

After they had pulled the boats to the shore and hidded them either into the buildings or to the long grass, they took from the boats the guns, shovels, pickaxes and sacks for the treasure hunt, tied up the hostages together to the palm tree near the lakeside and left Vincent and Mbaya to watch over the hostages, plus boats, with the gunpoint.

The rest of the group walked through the ruined settlement, nearly everyone holding the musket, pistol and blunderbuss in their paws – and every pistol wielding pirate held in the another paw the sword, ax, dagger or shovel and pickaxe – as their primary weapon, if there was indeed some savaged marooned predator lust for flesh or non-hospitable natives hiding inside of the dwellings, behind of the every corner of in the bushes and trees with the daggers, spears, clubs, bows and poison darts... ready to ambush them and have either their scalps or skulls.

But much to their relief, the whole place was isolated.

No marroned and savaged predators.

No hostile natives.

Nor any booby trap as the map's writings foretold.

At least not yet so they were free to walk throught the senttlement and step into the jungle..

But still, even if they did not encountered anything yet, it does not mean that they would not encounter any possible danger in the jungle. So, the pirates kept their senses alert and their weapons ready to fire at any danger they might encounter on their trip to the trove.

They had to walk to the north for one hundred steps through of the jungle as the map and Ben's translating help said so, until they'll reach to the place where they're supposed to find the jaguar's stone head, which was obviously covered by the jungle's vegetation.

The pirates were then by that information and by Wilder's orders started clearing the way through the vegetation with their swords.

They kept doing this for all one hundred steps towards the north, which abundant flora made a bit difficult that the pirates were starting to feel that this route insisted a one thousand steps instead of one hundred.

But surprisingly, they quickly realized that complaining did not help their situation and none of them was willing to turn and look for an easier shortcut through the abundant flora.

Judy knew the answer to this non-reluctant and non-complaining situation. The treasure was the motivation of these greed pirates which kept them on the move in the only straight and direct route without any protesting and complaining.

After roughly over an one hour, the jaguar's stony head was eventually found in the end of the route of one hundred steps from hiding within the large bushes and under the messing liana.

Judy felt herself very sweaty. Her fur and her ears were really wet from the sweat and she felt her ears to be a bit heavier than before that they were like pulling her head down backwards. Judy also wiped off the every stratum of the abundant beads of sweat from her forehead, which was soon replaced by a new batch of sweat droplets. And no wonder, if she felt like that, because the island was most definitely either volcanic or then it was caused from the Caribbean Sea's blazing air and the humidity of the jungle.

Luckily they had took some food and water with them... and more lucky was that the pirates had gave to her and Ben two their species sized bottles of water, one of which Judy spent twice to flushing her head but the another one she saved her drink water. Ben used both of them as his drink water, because he wasn't bothered by the dirt or sweat, because he had the most obviously used to be dirty and sweaty but good for Judy's sense of smell that the yak took care of his own hygiene by scrubbing himself in the river's or waterhole's water.

Some of the pirates were even surrounding her and Ben, helding their pistols and muskets while they were walking in the jungle like they were even protecting them... but no. They weren't protecting them because of being gone soft. They were protecting them only because of the knowledge that she and Ben were the keys with the map to Flint's trove and for that they were too precious to the greed pirates to lose them to the any savage marooned mammal, hostile native or ancient booby trap.

And to sweaty Judy's annoyance, the pirates refused to let Judy and Ben have a break even for a simple five minutes.

Every pirate in the presence, except for Wilder as more serious than a rest of them, explained to Judy and Ben the reason for that – which was more likely and extremely poor and baseless with numbers voted excuse – that "because of bunny and her friends rash action to abandon ship and go hide into the jungle yesterday, which had forced them to deal with them first" they had wasted lots precious time by one day with them in the treasure hunt.

After hearing this, Judy had immediately denied this harsh and baseless claim.

"You were the ones who were up to mutiny in the first place and you intent to kill us was the real reason which forced us to abandon ship and go hide into the jungle, and just to stay alive. So, YOU and your mutiny are the real reasons for the treasure hunt being delayed with one day, not us." Judy had responded.

Unwilling to accept that, the pirates started with the harassing manners to force Judy and ben to keep leading them to the treasure.

Such like Redfur grabbed unexpectedly and painfully from Judy's ears, lifting her up from the ground from her ears – which caused her to grit her teeth in pain – and threatened to run his sword through of Judy's body if she does not deny her claim.

And as Redfur let go off her, a wild boar pirate grabbed her from the neck and with the force he nearly pushed Judy's head inside of his blunderbuss's wide barrel, which was nearly the wide enough for Judy's head to fit in, to look inside of the gun's barrel and answer to his question that "was the powder dry enough" to shoot her right here and right now if she does not deny her claim.

As Judy pulled her head out from the barrel, with the face a bit blackened by the gun barrel's sooty inside, but still refusing the deny her claim which was a truth indeed.

And after that, the spotted hyena pirate grabbed from the rope of the noose around of her neck and suddenly lifted Judy up from the ground from it and pointed the sharp dagger's head at her abdomen, threatening to gut her with it like the fish if she does not deny her claim. However, despite the noose tightening into the squeezing/strangling level around of her neck and struggling for dear life on it while hanging in the mid-air, Judy was still refusing to deny her claim.

And then, the spotted hyena tried really to carry out his threat, until the one-eyed-leopard pirate came into the scene to interfere/prevent the spotted hyena pirate's doing, claiming that "gutting the bunnies wasn't as funny as cutting off the throats," and she make an example fo that by extending one of his claws and with the sadistic-look grin the one-eyed leopard pirate "slashed" with his extended claw Judy's throat... cutting the noose rope around of her throat... without harming the bunny's neck itself.

After getting unceremonially freed from the noose, which had tightened very tight around of her neck, Judy slowly raised up on her knees, coughing and panting heavily as she tried to catch some breath. Seeing that Judy was surrounded and harassed by the laughing pirates, Ben immediately tried to ran to her aid but was stopped by the noose which was tied around of his neck and it was hold back by Wilder, who had witnessed this a whole thing from aside... and he didn't liked it but he did not allowed Ben to interfere to this.

As Judy finally got up, the female cheetah pirate along with the badger pirate and Finnick, started to throw the daggers aiming to Judy and Ben's legs to make them "dance" like the saves in the rhythm of the drums in the slaveships.

Judy had to jump repeatedly and incessantly into the air to avoid the daggers to hit, scratch and in the worst case, run through of her legs which could easily to make difficult of her walking like the small injury on her knee from her fight with Israel Grey.

"You better... deny that... what did you... just said... or else... next... throw... is aimed... straight to... your head... between the eyes. You got it?!" The cheetah pirate asked mockingly between of her words cutting throws.

Eventually she threw the very last knife at her, which she had put to twist in the air. Judy of course managed to avoid the twisting blade from hitting and scratching her legs by jumping up, but she jumped forward too much – which was also supported by the fact that with the rapid speed flying and twisting blade kind of pulled her feet off from beneath of her – to avoid the twisting blade and before she could realize it, she fell on her stomach to a small mud pool.

The pirates burst into laught at this "clumsiness" as mud-covered Judy slowly stood on her feets from the mud pool, staring at the laughing pirates with the grim look in her face as she wiped the mud off from her face.

They laugh soon stopped as they heard the loud gunshot behind of them, which startled the pirates and got them to turn around to check that who had just fired with the pistol behind of them.

They all saw Wilder, holding the smoking pistol in his hands which he quickly reloaded and aimed with it his men.

"That bunny with her yak friend is our key to Flint's trove plus our guides through the jungle, not a somekind of Piñata to be beaten and harassed like that. If anyone of you even touches her until we get to the treasure – and if anyone of you, even by an accident, forgets our deal with the bunny and her friends – I'll shoot the next bullet in between of that disobeyer's eyes. AM I CLEAR?!" Wilder demanded with the demanding and angry voice.

Without expecting the answers from anyone of his "pea-brained" men, Wilder moved to Judy and tied another noose around of her neck and pulled her away from his men.

"The break for five minutes!" Wilder called, much to his men's disappointment but, however, they were unable to protest or say anything back.

Even though they had the five minutes for the break, Judy wasn't quite thankful towards Wilder. She was still bitter at him and fully aware that Wilder stepped between of her and his "pea-brained" pirates for his own lifelong goal.

However, the break gave her time to wash the remaining mud off from her fur, ears and clothes in the small water hole she found behind of the nearby bushes near of the stone jaguar's head.

But to her annoyance, she had to stay in Wilder's sight so that he would keep an eye on her. Wilder even went so far that he took out the pistol and aimed with it at her to warn her not to run into the jungle. But otherwise, he gave her her own private time to wash up with a reminder that the break time was only five minutes... four and a half minutes currently.

Four minutes later.

After getting herself half-completely washed up, Judy and Ben together unwrapped the map and began to figure out the next direction which they were supposed head now.

Through of Ben's translated ancient writings and the landmarks of the jungle, which were described to the map, they soon figured out that from the stone jaguar's head they're supposed to head next one hundred and thirty steps from the jaguar's head to North-East, until they reach to the half-open area in the jungle.

The group was very soon on the move, and nearly running towards their next stop.

After a while, and nearly halfway through the trip, they arrived to the small and a huge wave-looking cliff of the hill, in next of which was standing to their surprise, shock and even horror a huge pyramids and seas of the bare animal skulls and tons of animal skeletons, which were ripped limb by limp. Some of the skeletons and skulls were even set to hang in the heads of the spears at the mercy of the weather and scavenger birds.

These bones and skulls were probably all what's left from the previous population of this island, even though there was no direct explonation that who had caused such of massacre and brought the bones here.

The sight was so disgusting that Judy covered her mouth with her paws and turned away from the such of mass grave.

As Wilder, Judy, Ben and the pirates passed the sea of the skulls and bones, they realized much to their horror that among of the bones and skulls was squirming a huge pack of red or green gigantic constrictor snakes, which suddenly revealed themselves from beneath of the sea of the skulls and bones as soon as the raccoon brothers, who were interested about the golden ring with the shiny purple diamond in the half-ripped skeleton's bony finger, came too close of the pile of bones and skulls to have the ring removed from the skeleton's finger.

As the very first constrictors snake appeared from the mouth of the nearby skull in front of the brothers, a both raccoons had screamed in shock and horror like the little girls seeing the giant snake's eyes staring hungrily at them.

However, both of them survived from getting eaten as they quickly recovered from their shock, wisely abandoned the golden ring behind, turned quickly around and run away from the snake before it managed to pick anyone of the raccoon brothers into its wide mouth and swallow him a whole.

The snake indeed went to chase after them snapping its jaws towards the raccoon's tails in order to pull one of the raccoons back to him and its mouth, but as the snake came closer the rest of the group, the pirates started immediately fire towards the snake's head with every musket, pistol and blunderbuss they got, quickly reloading them and firing again. The snake's rapid movement made the aiming to snake's head a bit difficult, but the snake was eventually overcame and killed with the raw and overwhelming fire power with the close and devastating shot with the blunderbuss through of the snake's head.

After killing one individual, more constrictors snakes began to pour out from the skulls, but remained far from the pirates and their "banging things" hissing at them angrily and hungrily.

"Yeah! Stay inside of your skulls, you cowardly worms!" The boar pirate shouted at them in the mocking tone as he fired at them with the very last time, hitting and smashing one of the skull's next to one of the snakes and causing them to slither back inside of the skulls until the snakes were completely out of the sight.

Wilder made eventually end of this pointless playing with the constrictors snakes and ordered everyone on the move to the topside of the hill, which they did.

During of the trip, a small distance away from the boneyard whiuch was called in the map through of Ben's translation "the snake's nest," Ben revealed to Judy something, not even caring that was Judy listening him or not.

"Well, Old Ben has gotta say Juicy, that Old Ben in fact wasn't the only one marooned here. There was also some buddies who were marooned here long before Old Ben. If Old Ben remembers correctly, one was male moose called Monty Mooserson by name – Old Ben used to call him Morty – and another one was the black jaguar called Renato Manchas by name. Morty was the doctor and Manchas was gunner on the ship, which was lost, at the mercy and eventually hit to the rocks in the vicious thunderstorm over decade ago before Old Ben was himself marooned here. They were the only ones who survived from the such of vicious storm which viciously destroyed their ship and killed everybody on board except them. They saved everything from their wrecked ship what they were able to save and lived with it plus with the offerings of this island. Old ben met them two years after Old Ben was marooned here. Morty was from two of them that more friendly, wise and even skilled survivor and helped Old Ben in gathering for food to survive and making with Old Ben our temporary camp from the ship's remains and the leftovers of their ship's wrecket near the beach plus beacons for the possibly passing ships. Well, Old Ben can't say much the same about Manchas. The jaguar had a lots of muscle and spunk but he totally lacked friendliness manners and compassion. Whatta harsh, stubborn, stone-hard and demanding jaguar like all the gunners and the sailors like him are. However, he was a good, albeit reluctant, bodyguard to protect us with his impressive arsenal of guns against any feral predator and hostile native dwelling on this island. In fact, he never liked and less trusted Old Ben because of Old Ben being native-born and saw Old Ben just the savage-natured native after their skulls, and without Morty's interference, he would have slashed Old ben's throat open, put the bullet into Old Ben's skull or otherwise even hunted Old Ben down through the whole island and, who knows, roast Old Ben on a skewer and ate Old Ben. Thanks to doctor Morty, he didn't, but still he swore to keep an eye on Old Ben and shoot him if Old Ben even tried anything."

Judy coiled her nose in disgust after hearing what Ben had just said about "roasting Ben on a skewer and eat him." That sounded really disgusting from her.

"Why they were here? To where they were going and what for they were after?" Judy eventually asked, without taking her eyes away from the map.

"Old Ben doesn't know nor remember much, but the doc told to Old Ben that they'd been adrift on the sea less than two weeks after their ship, as they told to Old Ben, was under of attack by two pirate ships. They had the bigger merchantman and heavier weaponry than the pirates had but their own ships were smaller and faster than their ship. Their fast moving brought their ship's cannons difficult to get a clear devastating shot against their ships. Well, they told Old Ben that they eventually managed to defeat the pirate ships – or, more likely, as they told to Old Ben, the pirate ships actually defeated themselves." Ben explained.

Judy created the very unbelieving look on her face as she turned to look at Ben from behind of the corner of her eye like asking " _You're kidding me, right?_ "

"Well, Old Ben is just trying to explain this by the way they told to Old Ben. The pirates of one of the ships managed to attached their ship to Graig's and Manchas ship's side and its pirates were ready to climb aboard while the another pirate ship was gonna attach itself to the side of the ship. Well, their ship eventually gained the overpaw over the pirate ships and managed to defeat them because the pirate ship's own cannon balls had managed to heavily damage the ship's rudder, the ship's sails were released and tightened and it was the rapid wind from the west, which caused an unmanageable ship to run with the devastating consequences and destructive power over the both of pirate ships. Since that, their ship had sailed in adrift and unmanageable until they were caught by the storm and got marooned here. But what they were after, Old Ben doesn't know that. They never told to Old Ben. And whatever it was, it was probably too important to be revealed to the outsiders like Old Ben." Ben explained.

Judy's eyes returned fron yak to the map, following the gloving line's slow movement in their spot on the map.

"So what happened to them? Why they weren't with you when we met?" Judy eventually asked, not taking her eyes way from the map.

Ben found himself a bit dumbfounded before he was able to answer.

"Old Ben got no clue. But if Old Ben remembers correctly, we were run out of the food and Manchas went to Jungle to hunt for woods but he went missing after he wasn't back for the month. So, Morty went to look for him, despite that jaguar being such of dumbass. Old Ben doesn't remember much but, Morty said something that he suspected that maybe Manchas had got himself lost into the jungle in the center of the island, so he was going to look him from there at first and finally he asked Old Ben do not come to look for him if he's not back within a few days. It has been already several decades and he's still not back. Old Ben thinks that Morty was either killed by some fatal accident, maybe those recent snakes, maybe some on this island marooned and eventually savaged predator or hostile territorial natives but Old Ben is unaware of that. Old Ben, however, did look for him for years from the jungle starting from the center parts of the island, learning at the same time every corner of this island, And after the another storm devastated Old Ben's camp, Old Ben gathered everything what was left and then Old Ben moved to that skull cave."

"And Juicy knows the rest." Ben added and kept walking next to Judy.

Suddenly, Wilder raised his paw up as a signal to "halt" to the others.

Judy, Ben and the pirates immediately stopped and the pirates raised their guns aiming with them at everywhere, without even asking the reason to halt, because they were all aware that usually when someone does that, it means that there's either some barrier on their way the passing of which needed a moment to think, depending on barrier, or then they were not alone in the area.

It could be concluded if they had encountered on the group of spears submerged on the ground and in the heads of which was hanging the skulls with the different colored feathers, piercings and on the skull hanging scalps and bones, which was usually the natives sign and warning to the outsiders to "stay away or else you die!"

However, there was no such of sign.

But, judging from Wilder's acting as he turned to his crew, pressed his finger front of his lips and called with the "shh" his men to keep their voices down...

...there was something... something which wasn't on seen but probably was hiding in the jungle... and, who knows, probably even stalking them.

"What it is, cap'n?" Finnick asked while holding two pistols on his paws.

"We've been stalked." Wilder answered quietly.

Wilder then reffered everyone slowly and without any suddden move to get down on the ground and be quiet, because whatever was stalking them at the moment from the bushes and grash, was probably territorial savaged predator or native hunter/scout/warrior, who saw them as a threat and unwelcomed outsiders on its territory and wanted them either to leave from its territory or kill them if they don't.

Wilder wasn't at the moment able to explain some of his dumbfounded and confused men his attitude towards the situation like this in any way except with the silent orders "stay on the ground" and "be calm and quiet" called with a paw gestures. Only Judy concluded that Wilder's attitude towards the situation like this was supposed to show the stalker that they weren't threat, so that the predator or native would lose their interest/defensive instincts and leave them alone.

Wilder had probably encountered with the such of situations before and he obviously knew how to act in such of situations.

Even Wilder himself hoped that this would work to help them out of the situation.

However, Wilder kept his reloaded pistol on his paw and ready to fire at the sudden attacker, as did the rest of the pirates, because everyone knew that both savaged predators and natives can be unpredictable and they will attack with or without the reason.

The most reasonable reasons for the sudden attacks would be drived to attack by the territorial instincts or the hunger... or for their scalps and skulls, if the natives were headhunters.

However, the main reason why Wilder was doing this was that willy-nilly predator or native them out of its territory or not, there was no way he was gonna turn around and to get around the area without trespassing because it would take a lot of time and cause them even get lost from the right tracks to the treasure. He wasn't gonna give up and let any territorial and savaged predator nor hostile native to prevent him from fulfilling his life-long dream.

This Judy knew very well.

However, none of them, except Judy, spotted that the area all around them happened to be full of strage but beautiful tropical purple flowers what Judy had never seen before.

"Ben, what are these flowers? I've never seen them before." Judy whispered as she took a couple steps towards the flowers despite the noose around of her neck.

Ben let out the silent gasp and quickly pulled Judy away from them.

"Juicy is good and stays away from those ones. Old Ben knows those flowers. They're called _Midnicampum holicithias_ a.k.a Night Howlers. They of course look a beautiful, especially on the night when their stamens glows like the fireflies. They were even used by zooztecs to protect their crops from the harmful insects, but there was also a minor side effect in those flowers... if Old Ben remembers correctly..." Ben said while staying himself away from the flowers and began to poke around his memory to try to remember that why it was wise to stay away from those flowers.

However, Judy wasn't as stressed like Ben was.

"They're just a flowers. What harm they supposedly have?" Judy asked while looking back at the flowers.

As Ben was about to explain, they suddenly heard the deep growling coming from nearby, which got Judy and Ben to look around alarmed.

Also the pirates heard that, and ven though Wilder ordered them to stay low, they raised their pistols and muskets up aiming everywhere and being ready to fire if something suddenly attacks them.

While Judy backed off back to the group, Ben stayed still and dared a little bit to raise his head above of the grass to see that who had a moment ago growled like that... with the expression on his face which told that he was afraid for the worst.

There was nothing on seen in the area and it was suddenly suspiciously quiet.

However, it did not receive Ben to feel himself relieved. He was with the hundred percent that they weren't alone.

"Alright, it's all clear. All of you, on your feet and move on!" Wilder suddenly and loudly called and the pirates got up on their feet and lowered their weapons and were about to keep moving to the direction to where they were even going.

Ben couldn't believe that despite the fact that Wilder was a fox, he just simply gave up on his instincts which told Ben to be more careful and alert because he was sensing that there was something which was waiting for the right moment to strike.

Ben was then slowly about to stand up and turn around to rejoin to the others, until he saw movement in the nearby crass.

Ben turned around to check what caused the crass to shook just as if someone was hiding and secretly moving among them.

After Ben looked into the crass carefully, he suddenly saw the black figure crouching among the green crass... with the bared teeth, a bright green eyes with narrow pupils.

The deep growl and the figures acting like it was about to jump out from the hidding confirmed Ben's senses about something bad nearby.

"MANCHAS!" Ben screamed loudly in horror-like tone, as he quickly jumped upright and backed off back to the group.

Ben's scream got the attention of every mammal's in the presence to turn from keeping moving to the direction Ben was pointing with his finger as he rapidly backed off back to the group.

And, much to everyone's surprise, as soon as Ben had let out the scream of horror and backed off, a huge black jaguar launched itself from the crass, roaring savagely as it lunged towards the pirates, Judy and Ben.

"Shoot that! SHOOT THAT!" Wilder rashly yelled to his crew, but his men were too surprised about the attack and yet that jaguar gone savage had attacked from so near of them that they had no time to raise their weapons and fire at the beast.

But the jaguar wasn't after them... more likely, he was after Ben and Judy.

"LOOK OUT!" Ben screamed at Ben as she suddenly pushed the yak aside and jumped herself backwards out of the jaguar's way, managing narrowly dodge its claws which were just five centremetres away from her neck.

But the claws managed to cut the noose off from her neck.

Her rapid jump to backwards got her to fell over to the ground, right next to the savaged jaguar, which was standing on the ground by all fours, loudly and aggressively snarling and bellowing and looking at the pirates, who were in panic backing off from the jaguar and raising or reloading their weapons to shoot the savaged mammal.

During of this, Ben and Captain Flint quickly jumped inside of the nearby bush to avoid to be seen, located and hunted down by the jaguar.

While the beast's attention was elsewhere and it was not yet aware of her being really close of it, Judy took this as an advantage and started to crawl away from the jaguar and managed to get some distance away from the savaged jaguar as its attention was on the pirates and tried many times to swung its claws and snapped its jaws and sharp feline teeth towards the pirates to pick one of them as its today's meal.

However, the luck was not with her.

The jaguar soon realized that it will not get easy meal from the pirates, who were firing in the air in desperate attempt to scare the beast away with the loud noises of their gunshots or keeping it away from them by swinging their swords towards the beast in every time as the jaguar dared to come any closer of them.

And then, it suddenly turned its head from the pirates to Judy's direction and saw Judy's head peeking from behind of the large green leaves and the crass.

The savaged beast immediately licked its lips, much to Judy's horror as she realized that the beast had picked her as an easy meal instead of the pirates, and the jaguar began to growl aggressively at her direction and started to walk towards on her.

"OH, MY GOD!" Judy shouted as she rapidly get up on her feet and began to run away from the jaguar to the jungle... the jaguar launching itself to the chase after her.

The pirates sighed in relief after the beast departed, but Wilder – along with Ben and Captain Flint – was far away from the relief after he realized something.

He spotted that Judy wasn't among of them anymore and that the noose around of her neck was lying on the ground... and yet the map was missing once again.

Wilder realized that the beast had obviously went after Judy instead of retreating into the jungle leaving them alone, and the map was still in her possess. She had probably forgot it while trying to escape the beast.

Wilder realized also that if that beast manages to eventually catch Judy into its killer claws, it may rip the map into shreds in the process while tearing the rabbit herself apart.

There was also another concern in Wilder's mind, because she had spotted that the jaguar was running towards to their direction of arrival, to which Judy, while hunted by the jaguar, was also intentionally or then unintentionally running and right on that direction was that wave-like cliff, in the foothill of which happened to be...

"BY KRAKEN'S MOUTH!" Wilder loudly muttered, concerned about the map's – but secretly also for Judy's – safety if she was running towards right that direction.

Wilder knew that they had to act quickly and turned to his men.

"THE MAP! THE BUNNY HAS TAKEN THE MAP! SHE'S ESCAPING! AND THAT THING IS RIGHT BEHIND HER! GO AFTER THEM YOU BUNCH OF COWARDS!" Wilder loudly ordered his crew.

After hearing that the map was in the bunny's possess, the pirates immediately rushed ahead of Wilder to after Judy and the savaged predator with the pistols and swords.

Wilder also left only one oh his pirates, the woodchuck pirate, behind to watch over and hold Ben and Captain Flint with the gunpoint while he and the rest of his men were hunting the map, the certain rabbit and the savaged jaguar.

The woodchuck pirate was at first a bit reluctant to watch over the dumb yak and annoying monkey, but knowing his captain's reaction towards the disobedience, the pirate had no other choice but to stay and watch over the rest of the hostages.

However, as soon as Wilder and the rest of the pirates had disappeared out of the sight, the woodchuck pirate turned its head to the yak and monkey...

...only to find out much to his confusion that the monkey and yak had escaped into the jungle

 **Meanwhile**

In the hardly controlled panic, Judy rushed quickly through the palm tree filled crass fields trying desperately escape the beast running right behind of her.

as a smaller mammal, Judy tried the quick turnings from direction to direction and run through the narrow space between of the palm trees in order to buy herself more time to escape or get the beast into the confusion.

However, the beast knew the jungle far more better than Judy did and after her every failet attempt to confuse the jaguar and buy herself more time to escape, the beast was still breathing to her neck.

And much to Judy's concern, she was unable to run as fast as she usually was able with her strong bunny reflexes and natural bunny speed due to her still recovering injury on her knee, which, along with the high dense grass was slowing her down.

Meaning that there was no way she was able outrun the savaged jaguar, which was running with all fours and faster than she did.

Judy then spotted the hollow tree trunk lying nearby, and taking that accident as an advandage to get cover inside of the trunk and distract the beast for a while, Judy quickly turned her running direction towards the trunk and dove inside of it, managing nick in time avoid getting her back badly scratched by the jaguar's claws.

Jaguar tried to dove inside of the trunk itself, but it was too big to fit inside of the hollow. Still, it kept trying while snarling, growling and trying to reach wwith its claws at Judy as she was quickly crawling towards the trunk's other side, hoping the trunk to hold the jaguar off just long enough that Judy will get another head start and keep escaping from the savaged jaguar.

However, Jaguar soon realized that trying to fit inside of the trunk, so it jumped over the trunk and tried savagely to rip the trunk open and even fit inside through the smaller holes in the trunk with its jaws and clawed paws trying to reach to bunny.

Judy had to crawl more lower level and keep a cool head to avoid the jaguar's snapping jaws and teeth plus its clawed paws which continually broke their way inside of the trunk in the spot of every hole and tried savagely reach to Judy.

One time a jaguar was very close to succeed, as the beast pushed its clawed paw inside of the trunk, it's claws landed over of Judy's right leg and managed to tear the shred from Judy's pants pant leg, narrowly missing its claws from digging into Judy's right leg and scratching them badly.

Judy yelped in shock after losing one of her pant legs and crawled faster forward the other end of the trunk, knowing that she had not much time to stop to check that did the savage beast just wounded her leg.

As Judy reached really close to the another end, she didn't realized in time that she was right beneaht of the large hole on the trunk, until the jaguar roaring lunged inside trying to reacch to Judy with its jaws...

...snapping it's jaws about four centimetres away from Judy's tail.

Jaguar's sudden attack through the hole she failed to notize and narrowly avoiding her tail to be chopped off startled Judy so badly that she let a loud yelp out of her mouth while turning around on her butt and crawled the rest of the way to the another end of the trunk backwards while staring at the jaguar with the shock and panic.

But lucky to her, jaguar had got itself to stuck into the hole, for now.

But realizing this, as well as the fact that it wasn't gonna reach to Judy by that way, Jaguar began aggressively pull itself off from the hole.

This gave Judy enough time to escape out from the trunk, and after she made it to the another end of the hollow trunk, Judy quickly climbed up on her feet and ran into the jungle, knowing that a trunk will not hold off the jaguar much longer, so she had to get far away of the beast as possible.

Without looking behind of her to see was the jaguar still after her, knowing that it would only slow her down, Judy, in half-controlled panic and in order to get away from the jaguar, kept pushing herself through a dense vegetation of the jungle, pushing out of her way the crass, large leaves and vines.

She didn't heard the vegetation of the jungle rapidly shaking behind of her, which at least told her that jaguar was still stuck in the trunk, but still Judy was unwilling to slow down until she was far away enough from the jaguar.

Suddenly, a dense vegetation of the jungle was left behind, and Judy noticed that she had arrived to the border of the jungle in which she, Ben, Flint, Wilder and his pirates were walking towards the direction of the north.

While still running, Judy looked around of her and was slightly confused that the area looked ominously familiar as if she were been here only a short while ago.

Judy also got to know that why.

After Judy noticed – much to her shock - that she was about to unintentionally run off the cliff, she desperately tried to slow herself down and managed to stop her at the last moment in the edge of the cliff – though she fell over to the ground while trying to sloww down herself, roughly and half-rapidly rolled in the ground duo to her rapid speed towards the edge and nearly fell over the edge. But Judy managed nick in time to grab from the long crass and some roots before she completely fell over the cliff and pulled herself back to the cliff.

After pulling herself up, Judy noticed that she had arrived back to the wave-like cliff, in the feet of whuch was the same sea of skulls and bones and the nest of the constrictor snakes.

Judy gasped in shock as she realized that among of what she was unintentionally about to rush under of her half-controlled panic and nearly uncontrollable rapid speed.

Her presence became clear even to those constrictor snakes among the skulls and bones, which, after catching her scent, started to slither out of the skulls and holes and all of them looked up at her, hissing angrily and in hunger at her.

"Oh sweet cheese and crackers. out of the frying pan into the fire." Judy said bitterly cursing her bad luck.

Like being at first as her own hostage in the paws of the pirates and after that being hunted down by the savaged jaguar weren't enough, and now she had got herself cornered on the cliff above of the small fall to among of the constrictor snakes slithering among the skulls while the jaguar was right behind of her.

And speaking of jaguar...

Judy then turned around and gasped in shock as she saw that the jaguar, who had finally got out from the trunk and untedectedly cornered her to the cliff, was standing on all fours and in a small distance away from her, approached slowly but threateningly towards her...

...the killer claws extended from the fingers of his paws...

...the sharp fangs bared at her...

...the bloodthirsty look in the predator's eyes targeted at her...

...and yet menacingly growling at her.

While Judy stared in fear at the savaged predator while it was threateningly approaching her, she remembered Ben mentioning something about the some black jaguar sailor marooned on this island with one moose and had eventually gone missing into the jungle a long ago before her arrival on the island and yet she remembered Ben screaming the name "Manchas" before the beast's attacked them and began hunt her through the jungle.

 _If this is the black jaguar named Manchas Ben mentioned, then what's wrong with him?_ Judy asked from herself in her mind.

Judy also remembered Ben explaining to her something about a harmful side effect those beautiful blue flowers they encountered before the jaguar's attack. However, Judy never got to hear it before a feral jaguar attacked.

However, the savaged predator's deep roar snapped her out of her thoughts in seconds, reminding her that she was still in the bad situation with the savaged animal.

"Okay, okay, okay. You got me. Easy, easy. Take it easy, nice-nice kitty. J-just easy. Don't get carried away. There-there's no much fro-from bunny to fe-feed you." Judy said nervously to jaguar, although she bitterly scolded herself by asking herself that _What in sweet cheese and crackers you think you're doing, Judy?! You think that that a feral predator understands a word you're saying?!_

"You-you gotta be... the one Ben was-was talking about. Manchas, right? Look, if you get-get angry about us in your territory, I'm-I'm forry for disturbing your peace. We-we weren't after-after you, we're-we're ju-just passing through. If-if you on-only allow us to pass-pass through in pe-peace, we-we will leave immediately and we'll not return the same-same way back. Okay?" Judy asked nervously, judging by her rapidly twitching nose, while she slowly backed off as the jaguar kept coming closer and closer.

However, feral Manchas showed a little interest to this request and prepared for the finishing leap towards Judy.

Judy's eyes widened in shock, because if feral Manchas, who had not any clue about the Snake-Nest in the feet of the hill beneath of the cliff, on which they were standing, leaps rashly at her, he will take both of them over the cliff and down to among of the skulls and snakes.

"Oh, no! Don't do that, you stupid cat! No, no, no, no, NO, NO, NO, NO! NOT THAT! ANYTHING BUT NOT THAT!" Judy nearly screamed in panic and horror.

It was, however, too late.

Feral Manchas, with the savage roar, leaped towards her, stretching out its sharp and extended claws ready to dig into Judy's flesh.

"NO!" Judy screamed as feral Manchas locked her into the feral predator's bear hug.

And, as a result of this, happened what Judy had feared.

The feral Manchas attempted to kill Judy after it had locked her in the bear hug by locking her small bunny-head into between of his jaws and fangs into the skull-breaking bite, until the savaged black jaguar eventually realized what he had done. With the bad and rash move, feral Manchas had pulled them both off the cliff and now both of them, feral Manchas and his prey Judy, were falling down to the sea of the skulls and bones.

In the middle of the falling, the jaguar released Judy from its bear hug.

The landing on the sea of the skulls and bones was rough and painful, causing the feral Manchas to let out the roar in pain and Judy to let out a loud yelp in pain.

The surface of the sea of bones and skulls was also like the waving surface of the ocean during of the storm and the piles of bones and skulls were like the houses in danger of collapse, so after Judy's and the savaged jaguar's rough landing over the skulls, the landing impact caused the biggest pile of skulls and bones to collapse into skull and bone avalanche, which rolled down and got Judy and feral Manchas into it in the process, roughly hammering them both with the different sized bones and skulls.

The skull and bone avalanche burriend savaged Manchas under of tons bones and skulls, but Judy managed to survive from being – at least completely – burried alive by the skulls and bones, although she got several smaller skulls landing on her head one by one after she dug herself up.

She even came to face to face with the another but a bit larger skull which obviously and unmistakably resembled moose's skulls, which sudden appearance in front of Judy's face made her gasp in shock.

Holding from her chest in the spot of her heart, slowly relaxing herslef and taking deep breath, Judy stared at the moose's skull for a while.

Because the skull seemed to be still attached to the skeleton, which seemed to have about two decades old and tattered clothes still on it...

Because Ben happened to mention something about the friendly moose doctor named Monty who accompanied Ben on this island a long ago after getting marooned in here and who eventually went missing in the center of the island while looking for now-feral Manchas...

And because of in this boneyard seemed not to be any other moose skulls, or at least not nearby at the moment...

Judy began to slowly realize that what had happened to Ben's moose friend.

But whatever happened to him and how ever Ben's moose friend died, Judy was more than just a unwilling to know the moose's cause of death.

Wiping off these thoughts and moaning and gritting her teeth in pain on her sore knee and her arm, Judy slowly and carefully got up and sat on nearby elephant's skull's tusk, where she began rubbing her still sore spots all around of her body and head with her paws.

But after Judy heard the angry growling and saw aggressive movement beneath of the skulls and bones weight, she realized that she had to get away from here and fast while she still can, thus the weight of the pile of bones and skulls wouldn't hold off the jaguar for long, and either later or sooner the beast could eventually succeed in digging himself out from beneath of the skull pile.

And she got even the proof of it as Manchas' head with the same savage look in his face and one of his clawed paws appeared from the skulls and bones.

The feral jaguar tried to pull himself up and attack to Judy again, as it angrily growled and hissed at her while snapping its jaws at her, but the weight of the pile was holding it off for now.

"Okay, okay, I'm going, I'm going, if you so nicely aks me to go." Judy said sarcastically as she stood up on her feet and was about the leave...

...while staring the skulls and bones, in which was still rotting pieces of flesh which were swarming by the scavenging insects such like carrion flies, under of her feets with the deep disgust.

Suddenly, as she passed another large elephant's skull...

Someone attacked her from behind, bitting her from her shoulder... right from that sore and still-recovering shoulder... which caused Judy to scream in pain.

Judy quickly turned her head to her left side and turned completely around to see was it the the same jaguar who attacked her from behind...

...however, much ot her horror, she realized that the attacker wasa huge green-skinned constrictor snake, which had undetected slithered out from the elephant skull's eye hole and attacked Judy from behind.

Quickly thinking, and yet still in panic, Judy picked one bone from the ground and began to whack the snake's head with it as hard as her own strenght and the bone's size and weight allowed her to, trying to force the snake-monster to release its grip from her shoulder.

With the hard hit on its left eye, the snake eventually let go of Judy's shoulders, but didn't retreat back into its nest. Instead, it angrily hissed at Judy and tried to repeat its attack at her.

Judy quickly backed off, swinging the bone towards the snake trying to keep it away from her as it completely slithered out of the elephant's skull's eye-hole and angrily hissing it followed here.

Judy also heard the loud hissing in anger and pain, plus loud and angry growling, behind of some piles of bones and skulls, which told her that the savaged Manchas was caught by the whole pack of the constrictor snakes, one of which Manchas was probably tearing apart in his claws.

However, Manchas wasn't only one who was facing the pack of constrictor snakes.

More and more constrictor snakes began to slither out of everywhere from the skull's mouths and eye-holes and they were all approaching Judy from everywhere.

Judy's focus turned from the first snake to another snakes one by one as they tried snap their jaws at her and attack her while her focus was completely eslewhere.

Judy barely managed to get her own panic under control as she tried to keep the snakes away from her with the bone as they kept coming closer.

However, one of the snakes, the very first one who had attacked at first to Judy, eventually lunged with the raw power at Judy and knocked her roughly over to the ground.

"NO!" Judy screamed as she felt the snake's jaws snapping around of her neck and she lost the bone from her paws.

And once Judy was on her back in the ground, the snake quickly coiled its long and green body around of Judy's body, leaving only her feet, right shoulder and arm and her head out, and started to squeeze her together.

Judy screamed in pain, as she felt how the snake's around of her coiled body was squeezing her still sore arm together against her body.

The snake also at the times loosened its grip around of Judy's body, when it turned away from her and angrily hissed to the other snakes to stay away from it and the bunny, claiming Judy as its prey.

She tried to get the snake release her by picking up from the ground the broken bone and stabbing with it to the snake's body.

Bad move from her...

...because even though in pain hissing snake priefly released its grip from around of Judy's body in pain, the snake growed even angrier from Judy's act.

And as a result, the snake tightened its grip around of Judy's body an even more firmly and and yet coiled it's upper body around of Judy's neck and started to squeeze its body around of Judy's neck... twice with the raw power.

After the second rough squeeze, Judy reaziled that what the snake was doing as she found herself to hard to breath after every squeeze.

"GET... OFF... ME!" Were the only words Judy got out of her mouth as tried desperately and in panic to catch some breath through of the squeezings.

Bad move from her, because the snake noticed her attempts to breath and as a result the snake squeezed its body around of her neck more and more harder and harder! Nearly blocking up completely Judy's respiratory tract, preventing her to get oxygen and making her more harder to breath. And yet causing her to let out the from her mouth a suffering swallowing noise in her throat.

Wriggling and struggling against the snake's coils raw power only made it worse, as the snake kept squeezing its body around of Judy's body and neck tighter and tighter, that as a result Judy's face slowly turned purple due to the lack of oxygen and her watery eyes blood veins started to expand as her eyes began to bulge.

As Judy slowly closed her eyes and stopped wriggling and struggling in the snake's coils waiting for death, the snake moved its head over of Judy's head and opened it's jaws, preparing to push Judy's head into its throat in attempt to swallow her whole.

But before the snake could to do so...

Judy suddenly, and barely, heard Old Ben's voice coming above of them.

"OLD BEN TO THE RESCUE!" Ben shouted as he jumped off the cliff among the skulls and snakes with two flaming stick in his hands.

"B-Ben?" Judy whispered weakly in snake's coils after she recognized the voice.

Ben's sudden appearance surprised the snakes as the yak landed next of the snake and coiled Judy and began to swung the flaming sticks fires towards the surprised snakes in attempt to force them to back off, even hitting with the sticks' the flaming ends to the snakes heads in the process if they didn't back off, burning their head skins and eyes and making them to hiss loudly in pain, until some of the snakes eventually had enough and finally retreated from the scene inside of the skulls and holes.

Ben then turned to the snake, which was holding Judy in its deadly grip and began to whack the snake's head with the flaming stick hard and repeatedly in order to force the snake free Judy from its coils.

But the snake was unwilling to release Judy, which the serpent kept as its claimed prey, from its coils, even though Ben's stick's flaming head was burning its head skin and its eyes.

Ben wasn't gonna give up even though the snake happened to be so stubborn. Ben kept whacking the snake's head, but failed to notice that the snakes were once again starting to slither out of the skulls and approach threateningly and hungrily hissing at Ben from everywhere, surrounding the yak.

Instead of releasing Judy, the serpent monster hissed angrily at Ben and snapped threateningly its large jaws at him, aiming to the yak's head, and eventually even lunged the fangs ahead towards Ben.

But before the snake was able to snap its jaws around of Ben's head, Wilder suddenly arrived out of nowhere and quickly slashed the snake's head off with his sword, saving Ben and freeing Judy from the snake's coils as the dead headless snake's body completely loosened its grip around of Judy's neck and body, allowing Judy to breath again.

The pirates then began to viciously attack the constrictor snakes, slashing mercilessly the snakes heads off with their swords and firing at them multiple times with the pistols and muskets, aiming them to the heads, if the snakes didn't backed off but stayed and fought back.

Wilder himself slashed from couple of the snakes the heads off and split in half the thrid one's head with his sword and fired with all of his three pistols the three attacking snakes into their heads.

Some of the pirates even threw the grenade's towards the spots where was the biggest packs of the snakes swarming towards them. And when the grenade's blow up, the explosions tore the snakes into pieces and threw their pieces and the skulls and bones everywhere.

Eventually, the snakes had enough after the pirates killed several dozens snakes and retreated inside of their nests in the skulls and holes.

After the brief battle, Ben, wit hthe help fo Captain Flint, immediately and quickly pulled Judy outfrom under of the pile of the headless snake's limb coils, took her away from the sea of the bones and skulls and put her down, as the rapidly shaking bunny strongly panted and coughed as she tried desperately and in panic catch some breath after getting free from the snake's squeezing coils.

"Easy, easy, Juicy. Don't panic, don't panic. Everything is okay now. Relax, just relax, Deep breath, just a deep breath." Ben said as he calmed Judy down.

Even for once during of spending time with the yak, Judy did as Ben told her to do and slowly relaxed her tensed body and took the deep breath one by one.

It took for a while before Judy managed to get some words out of her mouth.

"I'm-I'm okay, Ben. Thanks." She whispered weakly, as she turned to ben and gave him a weak but grateful smile for saving her life.

However...

"Alright, the snakes are driven back into their holes... the bunny, and most importantly, the map is in safe. The time has been lost already more than enough, so KEEP MOVING!" Wilder shouted at him men with the frustrated and impatient tone.

And as the pirates started to leave from the scene and leave the boneyard behind pf them once and for all, Wilder came to next to Judy and Ben and tied the another nooses around of their neck.

"Let this be the very last time you run away like that – and yet even with the map, bunny! Because if you do that again, I'm not gonna tie the noose around of your neck for the fourth time and lead you like a dog on a leash and map on your paws. Instead, I'll have you tied up from arms and legs to the stick and being carried on it the rest of the trip to the trove. Am I clear?" Wilder said harshly.

Judy locked the death glare towards Wilder's eyes as he finished tying the noose around her neck, with the unthankful expression on her face what Wilder of course didn't expected from her.

She knew that the fox pirate didn't saved her and Ben from the snake because of sheer fatherly gentleness like he had during of the voyage until the arrival to the island, but instead because of the safety of Flint's map and his urgent will to finally find Flint's treasure and seemingly remembering Ben's threat about commit suicide, which he was going to carry out on himself one way or another if Judy ever dies, which would destroy all his chances to finally find Flint's trove after all these years.

"Hey, I was running for my dear life away from the savaged jaguar who wanted to kill me as its prey." Judy angrily defended herself against Wilder's baseless claim.

"Who cares? Just as long as you keep the map and that your disgusting yak friend in safety and physically well, nothing else matters. NOW UP AND MOVE ON!" Whilder said harsly and started to follow his men, pulling Judy and Ben up from the ground and on the move from the nooses' ropes like dogs.

Ben tried to beg Wilder to give Judy even five minutes time to catch some breath after being squeezed nearly to the death in the coils of the snake, despite the fact that he knew that his pleads would do nothing more than fell on deaf ears of the fox pirate.

But, unknowingly to him, his pleads didn't fell.

Inside of himself, despite his own urgent will to find the treasure as soon as possible, Wilder let out the deep sigh. Silently and secretly scolding himself for speaking so harshly and loudly to the bunny, and yet even after what she had a moment ago went through with those blasted snakes. Wilder was even secretly willing to allow Judy even for five minutes to sit down, take a rest and take a breath, but he was unable to grand to Judy such of thing, because of his men were watching from aside the scene with the suspicious looks on their faces. Wilder knew that his men were growing impatient and Wilder did not wanted them to believe that he's gone soft.

So, Wilder denied Ben's pleads about the respite for five minutes for Judy, but silently and bitterly scolded himself for this, because he desperately hoped to be able to tell to Judy and Ben that his seemingly harsh, relentless and pirate-like behaviors and actions were just pretending in order to keep his men under his control.

It will not help them if his men eventually decides to turn on him after finding out that he had indeed the shoft spot for the hostages... especially towards Judy.

Unaware about this, Ben snoprted in disgust towards Wilder's actions and words and was forced along with Judy to keep moving after Wilder.

Judy then poked Ben in his side to get his attention.

"Well, at least we got finally meet your long-lost and not-so-friendly buddy Manchas you mentioned about, albeit not so pleased ways. And I also got the chance to meet your moose friend as well, Ben. Or at least all what was left from him, and I absolutely don't want to know what had happened to him. Or maybe I know that what happened to him, because I was nearly about to experience his terrible fate. I just don't want to think about it." Judy said, while she peeked over her shoulder towards the boneyard, which was slowly falling behind with it's residents and their newest meal.

"Then Old Ben guesses that it would be best to change the subject, if it helps Juicy to forget what she just nearly experienced." Ben said back.

Judy nodded back.

"Yeah, as though, by you at first telling me about the harmful side effects in those blue flowers called Night Howlers you were about to tell me before we change the subject completely." Judy said, a bit with humor in her voice.

* * *

 **I hope that you enjoyed the chapter.**

 **This is the first part of the Treasure Hunt scene, because it took much text about explaining a bit more about Ben's life on the island to get starting point to the following action.**

 **In this part of the story, I decided to bring some action during the united good guys and bad guys treasure hunt, so I decided to add the Night Howlers and savage Manchas scene from Zootopia, including a small pinch from Nala chasing Pumba in the Lion King, to this part of the story.**

 **And I couldn't resist from adding the pile of skull and bones populated by the constrictor snakes into this part, inspired mostly by Jungle Book's Kaa, many coiling scenes from Anaconda movies and the Strangles-named python strangling Homer Simpson in The Simpsons**

 **Thirteenth chapter is on its way and is out soon.**

 **See ya.**


	13. Chapter 13: Treasure Hunt Part 2

**HELLO AGAIN TO ALL CURRENT AND UPCOMING READERS, FOLLOWERS, AND FANS!**

 **It's time to continue from where we were left on my fanction TREASURE TROPOLIS**

 **The second part of the TREASURE HUNT CHAPTER**

 **Because thirteenth chapter is now out.**

 **Enjoy of reading.**

* * *

After walking one hundred and thirty steps to the North-Eeast, they arrived to the serpentine and and one-way corridor between of two palisades.

Following Ben's translated advices from the map, they entered to the corridor, which eventually led them to the small but still a large and open area, with exception of a few palm trees growing in middle of the area and that there was a lot of a small mounds everywhere and upon them, as well as around of the whole area, was the large bushes and big leaf jungle plants, making this open area almost like the labyrinth shaped by the nature.

However, the labyrinth of bushes had at last one direct route to the other side of the area, which, however, had two arcuate angle. The first one was a bit closer to them and the second one was slightly further away from the midway of the route.

Everything seemed to be fine, for now.

Judy and Ben, still having the nooses tied around of their necks and which loose ends were still in Wilder's tight grib, were walking in the group's head.

They looked together the place-like this from the map so focused, that none of them spotted that they were walking towards the tripwire-like wire crosssing the road in front of them.

However, captain Flint noticed it and lunged forward to grab nick in time from Judy's waist.

"Hey!" Judy exclaimed when she unexpectedly felt someone touching her waist from behind of her, much to her surprise and annoyance, as she belueved that maybe one of the pirates had probably interested about her bunny body and watched to touch to it against her own wish...

...but before she even managed to turn around to see that who had dared to touch her, Flint quickly pull her back, to prevent the rabbit to step with the last step into the wire and accidentally launch the booby trap no doubt and fall as victim to it.

However, Flint failed to "save" Ben from such of fate.

As Judy and the map were pulled away from the next of Ben by Flint, Ben failed to notice the tripware and he got himself tripped by it.

But the wire suddenly snapped in half as Ben fell forward and over to the ground, pulling the loose end of the roap at the same time out of Wilder's grasp, catching the fox pirate's attention to the bunny and the yak.

But instead of trap, out of the nearby bush appeared right to the next of Judy the dead tiger's skeleton which was put to hang into the spear. The wire's another end was tied above on the spear hanging tiger's skull and under of the spear's sharp tip while the spear's another end was placed into the hole in the middle of the rocks, which blocked the spear from falling completely over to the ground... Depending on the condition of the spear's handle.

Seeing the dead predator's skull right next to her, Judy let out the scream and immediately backed away from the skull, holding her heart with her paws...

...while the pirates quickly pulled their pistols towards the skeleton, until they soon lowered their weapons down after realized that the whole thing wasn't even alive anymore.

"Sweet cheese... and crackers! My heart nearly... nearly jumped out... out of my throat!" Judy said between of her heavy pantings and shocked tone as she tried to calm herself down which wasn't easy for her, especially after nearly to be scared to death after seeing dead predator skull appearing out of nowhere right in front of her own tiny bunny nose.

As Ben raised on his feet, he turned his eyes to the tiger skeleton and noticed something what Judy and everybody else failed to notice.

There was also small piece of wood from the side of the ship hanging around of the tiger's neck and to it was also written in the language of zooztecs.

Ben immediately crawled in front of the piece of wood hanging on the predator's neck and started to read the words of zooztecs.

"Can Juicy bring that map a bit closer so Old Ben can find himself and the rest of us from it." Ben asked as he referred to Judy to come closer and take the map with her.

Though Judy was a bit unwilling to come closer of the predator skull she was frightened a moment ago, she did not wanted to be the coward in the front of Wilder and rest of his pirates.

So, Judy came closer of the skeleton and the piece of wood hanging on its neck to the next to Ben and held the map next to Ben's face so that he could search their current location from it.

It didn't take long from Ben to find their current location on the map.

"There! _The Belly of the Serpent_. The nasty and insidious place like the snake on this island. Ben often used to avoid this place. There's no way to get past of those bushes. Many have tried, many have not returned, and to the other side is no other way than this because of a huge chasms with the higher side behind of those palisades." Ben explained.

Even though even for once Ben remembered something and even though for once he acted seriously for the crazed on this island marooned jerk, Judy did not know that what Ben meant with all of that "Many have tried, many have not returned" thing about this bush and a large leaf plant labyrinth shaped by the nature.

"What do you mean?"

Ben pointed with his finger at the writings in the piece of wooden with the "look at this" manner.

" It says here, " Only ones who are bravest, more cunning and purely innocent enough can get pass of the deadly bush labyrinth of the Belly of the Serpent, which sends all the impatient and unwary ones to from their crimes deserved doom." Ben explained as he translated the writings for Judy.

"Here was centuries ago hidden something insidious and nasty by the zooztecs, built the Old Ben doesn't remember that what they did hide in here." Ben explained and after that he started of thinking the answer of that question that "what insidious and bad did those zooztecs hid in here all those centuries."

"And here we go again..." Judy said with the bored tone as she rolled her eyes at Ben's so called "memory of the elephant," which was, as Ben said so, glitching again.

However...

"Out of my way!" Heard from the behind of the pirates.

It was the one-eyed leopard pirate.

The large spotted feline pirate had already grown extremely impatient of this walking through of the palm jungle full of the to the death annoying mosquitos, heat, constrictor snakes. And all of this because they had to follow that the small rabbit with the map and her idiotic and Half-witted yak companion, who they had to by Wilder's orders place under of the full security due of them being their keys for the treasures and keep them away from any life-threatening danger to prevent them to carry out their threat of commit suicide and trap them into the jungle.

And yet they had to make "useless" and "time-wasting" intermediate stops, once to rescue the dumb rabbit from the snake hive and now wait aside for the bunny and the yak to find out the way to pass safely their next apparently harmless obstacle, which did not seem to require more than casual trespassing.

So, the leopard surrendered to his impatience and pushed everybody, including Judy and Ben, out of his way and kept going forward towards the bushes with the such of blind arrogance reckless manners, stubbornly and rudely ignoring even his captain Wilder's stern orders to come back.

Everything seemed to be fine at first as he was about to pass the first mound and the bush, until somehting suddenly and completely unexpectedly flied out from the bush and hit the unwary and unfortunate feline pirate to the neck.

The pirate roared out of one tiny sting in his neck and he raised his paw to remove the irritant thing off his neck, believing it to be nothing else but just another annoying mosquito.

However, in the seconds, the leopard pirate started to feel a bit dizzy in every second, which just grew stronger even more that the pirate started to slowly began to lose consciousness and began to totter like he was in drunk.

"H-h-h-help... m-m-m-me! H-h-h-help... m-m-m-mee!" The pirate pleaded with the throaty and choking-like tone as he slowly turned around and stretched out his paw towards the others.

The rest of them just looked at him and did nothing to help him.

Wilder didn't do anything for the feline pirate, because the leopard pirate had just stubbornly and rudely disobeyed his orders.

The pirates and Ben didn't do anything to help him, because the leopard pirate's reckless act had just revealed to them the secret and even invisible booby trap, and the possibility of them being more in the same area.

Judy didn't do anything for the leopard pirate, and not only because of him being the pirate but also realizing, much to her shock, the meaning of the writings on the piece of wood about the deserved doom for all the crimes in the impatient and unwary ones entire life and yet that only the bravest, cunning and purely innocent ones are able to pass these insidious bushes.

And for that, Judy felt that she neither wasn't completely purely innocent, because of her many times over of violation of law and order back in her home island before this entire voyage.

The leopard pirate slowly tottered towards of the rest of the group, until he eventually fell over to the ground. Then the pirate began to violently convulse in pain for a while before he died slowly…

Five minutes after the leopard's slow death, Judy recovered from her shock and picked the long stick from the ground and took carefully few step forwards the bush the next of which the leopard was lying dead, ignoring Wilder's stern orders to come back because of her own safety – and to his the pirates most importantly, because of their chance of find the treasure.

While Judy carefully walked forward, she kept at the same time an eye on the other nearby bushes, although being cautious not appeared to be much help, because it was the matter of seconds to fall victim of this booby trap... without the chance and time to dodge the darts.

After reaching towards the bush, without activating any booby traps by herself, she moved with the stick the some leaves and branches out of her way and sjediscovered, much to her shock, which gave her chills, another tiger skeleton hanging in the spear. In the tiger skeleton's mouth was wooden blowgun, letting to others to know that there was in some kind of dart traps hidden in every bush, blocking their way completely.

They needed to find the way to get through of the labyrinth and its deatly traps.

But how?

"Why are we still standing here?" Cheetah pirate yelled in annoyance.

"We have to find the another way, because I'm not gonna walk out there!" The crocodile pirate said, refusing to continue any further.

"Trying to find the shortcut through of these devil's bush labyrinth will take too long." Finnick said.

"That bunny led us to the wrong way! Let's push her to solve this problem or let's turn back." Rhino pirate yelled and started to turn around.

"NO ONE IS LEAVING! If anyone of you even dares, you'll get immediately the bullet to the skull!" Wilder threatened his fur-brained men.

"We just have to somehow find the way through of this blasted bush labyrinth without getting ourself poisoned by those blasted dart traps."

When examining their surroundings for a while, searching the answers for their a problematic situation, Judy spotted that there was two narrow edges on both of the palisades above of these bushes and on one of them, on the edge of the right-side palisades, was standing one large and lonely palm tree, which probably was a long anough that it could just barely reach to the another edge of the palisades.

There was also something written to the map about this trap, which Judy asked Ben to translate it for her, not caring about the pirates who were at the same time fighting about the decidion, turn around or go through, with each others.

But even Wilder did not paid any attention towards his men, because he knew that it would be useless to even bother to calm them down. But he was instead only interested about that what exactly Judy was planning to resolve this problematic situation... and allowed to bunny private time to think the answer/solution for this.

"There's always something which makes the trap either deactivated or turns then so they can't be harmeless and it is always there where is very hard to reach – meaning that it is in the other side of the trapped area – if uses only a direct action instead of thinking wisely at first like that leopard did." Ben said after translating the advices in the map.

After examining their surroundings, the trapped bushes and the tree of the edge, Judy also spotted that there was the vines hanging down over the cliff. But because the spot just happened to be in the middle of the area, and that end of the edge happened to be right in the spot of the hanging vines, there was no another easier way to get to that edge and there was no way Wilder was ever gonna allow her to go out there in fear of losing both of his keys to the treasure.

However, Wilder's focus on watching her and the yak was soon disturbed when one of his own men, who was pushed back by someone else, collided to him and Wilder's attention was dragged into the fierce argument with his own crew members that he completely forgot Judy and Ben.

Judy saw this as her chance, so she quickly sneaked away from Wilder's noose, quickly and quietly grabbed the ax from someone pirate and ignoring Ben's pleads to not go to the trapped area, Judy referred Captain Flint to climb on her back, to which the monkey eagerly complied and the due headed towards the trapped area.

Luckily for Judy, there was the use for the "many have not returned" knowledge. There was also another skeletons in the area – killed by these dart traps no doubt – with the spanish-like outfits or armors...

...luckily armors, and yet even one bunny sized.

So, before going among the bushes, and no willing to take any risks of being by accident fatally infected by the darts toxin, whatever it was, Judy dressed into the bunny-sized spanish chest armor but decided to use the helmet, which was a bit bigger than the normal bunny's head-sized helmet to protect both of her and Flint's heads from the darts. Besides, Flint's head inside of the same helm helped her to minimize the helmet's weight on her head and also prevented it from bothering her eyes by falling in front of her eyes by accident.

Judy also picket two shields in length of herself, including her ears, because she needed to protect her ears while listening with them her surroundings for the dart traps being activated and firing their darts towards her. And because she needed both of her paws to hold the shields in the air, she couldn't carry the ax in her paws, so she gave it to Flint to carry it through of the bushes.

The shields were also heavy and they could slow her down, but there was no another way to pass those traps if she wanted to get to the other side of the trapped area and deactivate them so that they can continue on their way to the treasure.

Even though Judy a bit hesitated of doing this, she took the deep breath and gathered all her courage inside of herself and took the first step towards the first bushes ahead.

Once, Judy was about to pass the first bushes, passing at the same time dead leopard's body, she immediately raised the shields in both of her side to protect herself from the darts as she heard the tiny sound of in the bushes, like the traps had activated and they began to shoot they darts which hit to the surfaces of the shields instead of Judy's skin.

The sound of the darts hitting to the metal surface caught Wilder's attention and he dragged himself out of the pirates fierce argument to see that what had caused such of sounds, only to realize that Judy had escaped from the noose – again – which was lying on the ground and yet unharmed this time.

But before he had time to curse this, he quickly spotted Judy in the middle of the trapped bushes, wielding the bunny-sized armor, a large helmet upon her and the monkey's heads and yet she was holding in her paws two large shields in both of her sides, which she had raised in the air, from her ankles to the tip of the helmet to protect herself from the lethal darts.

"What that dumb bunny is doing?!" Wilder asked from himself as he watched Judy's going.

Because of the weight of the helmet and the shield, Judy's going was slow, but she had at least survived the pass of seventeen bushes with the dart traps, without getting darted thanks to the shields.

One of them had, however, managed to pass the shields from their unguarded side and was about to hit Judy to her forehead, but thanks to the helmet, the dark jumped aside after its poisonous tip hit to the hard surface of the helmet.

Judy also nearly had to move hunched, to also protect her feet from the possible to the lower lever in the bushes hidden blowguns, which darts were aimed to the level of the legs.

However, there was some bushes, which even seemed to be quite harmless when there was not the sound of the darts hitting to the surface of the shields, but Judy did not wanted to take the risks of getting darted.

Eventually, Judy reached within 20 minutes to the vines hanging down from the edge, and after she had reached to the vines, she threw away every part of the spanish armor and started to climb up along the vines to the edge of the palisades.

And after she had managed to climb on the edge of the palisades, she took the ax into her paws from Flint and rushed towards the lonely tree on the edge, Flint right behind of her.

The smile briefly appeared of Wilder's face out of the proud for the bunny as he looked Judy's smart ... for the small dumb bunny.

After Judy reached to the tree, she started to cut down palm tree with the ax from the side to where she planned it to fall. And after several blows with the ax against the tree, it eventually fell over and its tip landed to the another edge, which allowed Judy and Flint to cross the labyrinth through of above of the insidious and lethal bushes with ease to the other edge in the other side of the area.

Once the both monkey and the bunny had reached to the another edge, they rushed towards the another end of the bush labyrinth without the difficult.

Once there, Judy and Flint climbed down from the edge, and remembering Ben saying about something which can make the trap either deactivated or turns then so they can't be harmeless.

So, if there truly was the such of thing, which can make these dart traps deactivated or in other way harmless, Judy and Flint started to fiercely look for such of thing from around.

Judy searched for something to deactivate the dart traps from the nearby bushes, from under of the gigantic jungle leaven, from under of the rocks, from inside of the couple of hollow tree... even from the wall of palisades covered by the jungle plants, leaves and vines.

In the other side, the pirates started to yell to her rushing and extremely insulting shouts, which course do not helped the situation at all but instead annoyed Judy even more.

One of them even called her as "slow and bone-idle rag doll!"

Another one of them called her to "slug-slow flatfoot," third one called her to "dumb cottontail" and fourth one called her to "flopsy swab bunny."

Even though Judy swallowed her the high urge to yell insults back on them, she had difficult to swallow all of those irritating insults which were like whispered into her hears from nect to her.

"Spoiled brats! Immatured jerks! Feeble-minded school bullies! Pathetic mama's boys! Impatient bilge rats!" Judy muttered silently such of insults from between her teeth and with the annoyed tone.

After palpating the surface of the stone wall for a while, she eventually found the ancient and mechanical stone lever, which was covered by the ancient plants and vines and which was hidding under of the great leaf jungle plant's leaves.

Judy at first removed every plant, leaf and vine around of the level, before she jumped to hang on it in order to pull it down with her own weight, which did not at first worked. Not until Captain Flint noticed that what Judy was doing and followed her example, by jumping to hang on the lever as well.

Together they eventually managed to pull the lever down, after of which Judy and Flint rushed to the border of the trapped open area to see the consequences and they hoped that hoped that they were able to deactive all the dart traps.

Nothing seemed to happen in the trapped area, even after Judy and Flint had managed to pull the lever down... except that there was a slight movement among the leaves of every bush of the area. None in the presence of course didn't saw it, except Judy, who instead of seeing heard the sound of the movement and the shaking leaves.

"We found and pulled down the lever here! It's probably linked to these dart traps. I'm sure that we managed to deactivate every dart trap or we turned them away from the straight road!" Judy shouted to the pirates, Wilder and Ben in the other side of the area.

However, the pirates seemed to be a bit hesitating to even take a one single step to the area with the bushes full of deadly dart traps.

However, Judy now saw her chance to payback for the pirates for their rude insults for her.

"Aww, did the cowardly landlubbers get cold feet? And you call yourselves the horrors of the sea." Judy teased with the sly expression on her face and the sly grin on her lips.

It was more difficult from the pirates to swallow easily such of tease than from Judy and many of them, except Wilder who was only able to swallow such of tiny little insult coming from the bunny, and many of them were eager to wrap their fingers around of Judy's neck into the neck-breaking or to the death chocking squeeze.

But still, after witnessing the leopard pirate's demise, they were still hesitating to take the step into the bush area due to being afraid of being darted with the toxin darts before they manage to say even "Ouch!"

This was too good to be true for Judy and she kept teasing the pirates.

"We were supposed to find the treasure, right? Do you Then can you just swallow your cowardly nature out of your so-called blood-thirsty nature and drag your pathetic lard butts to the other side?"

The pirates, except Wilder yet again who instead chuckled slightly at Judy's teasing and his own men reactions to it, loudly growled at Judy but they still hesitated to step among the bushes.

Eventually, the one thing what Wilder was unable to swallow, was his patience with his own men's cowardice and immediately as his first acts Wilder kicked Duke out of the group and through the long fly into the area.

"You, go ahead and investigate to show to these cowards that from what the pirates are made for!" Wilder ordered as he took his pistol out. "Stop, and I'll shoot every ten minutes a single shot behind of your legs to make you move." Wilder added with the threatening tone.

Duke crawled on his feet and, highly reluctant to even move forward to the dangerous area full of the deadly dart traps hidden in the bushes, the weasel turned around and started to walk back towards the others, until he, much to weasel's surprise, found himself threatened by every his fellow pirates with the sword- or gunpoint, aiming at his tiny weasel head with their captain his captain and forced the weasel to go forward.

"Yes... (glub) ...captain." Duge glubbed with the hesitation and the fear of getting darted, but still he obeyed his captain as he slowly took one step after step towards the bush area and the leopard pirate's dead body.

Every pirate followed the weasel's going with excitement as the weasel, slowly and hesitating, prepared to take his first step between the two bush.

The weasel streched his left foot carefully to the other side of the bushes, where the leopard's body was lying.

Everyone looked at the weasel preparing to take his first step between of the bushes with the widened eyes and out of deep excitement of what was about to happen.

They kept staring...

Duke kept streching his leg forward...

They kept staring...

Duke kept streching his leg forward...

They kept staring...

Duke kept streching his leg forward...

They kept staring...

Duke kept streching his leg forward...

They kept staring...

Duke kept streching his leg forward...

They kept staring...

From the fear and stress sweaty Duke was about to land his leg to the another side of the bushes...

Everyone was about to gasp...

Suddenly, Ben appeared out of nowhere from to the next of Duke.

Wilder was more than rather surprised of seeing Ben walking towards the area and paid a quick look towards the remaining noose, on which that yak was supposed to be.

But he only found the noose lying next to him on the ground, unharmed as well as Judy's own noose, of couse, revealing to Wilder that the yak had used their full attention to the weasel as his advantage and he had removed the noose from around of his neck and started walking forward.

Wilder couldn't believe that now his another key to Flint's treasure was at this very moment heading for hazardous area without any assurance that all dart traps are either deactivated or they're turned to the different direction so they can't be harmful. And yet the yak was like he didn't even cared about the traps hiding inside of the bushes or then the yak had just gotten into his mind the immediate death-wish... despite his threat of commit suicide if the bunny gets fatally hurt.

"Do I really had to tie those two from the legs and paws to hang in the sticks and have them to be carried with us, if the nooses aren't sufficient to keep them in place?!" Wilder asked from himself, a bit annoyed about the fact that despite the fact that how many times and how tight he had to tie a noose around on the bunny and the yak's necks, they always keeps running away.

They all turned their eyes to Ben as the yak walked simply and casually pass of the weasel and between the trapped bushes, and after passing the bushes, the yak kept walking ahead.

As the yak passed the weasel, Duke let out the girlish scream and jumped into the arms of surprised Finnick, shaking in the deep shock.

"He activated the trap! He activated the trap! He activated the trap! He activated the trap! He activated the trap! That feeble-minded yak just activated the trap in front of my legs!" Duke cried in panic in Finnick's arms, believing that that Ben had just activated the dart traps by walking pass of the trapped bushes while his leg was at that very moment in the fire line and he was now mortally afraid of that his leg was poisoned by the toxin of the darts

Finnick growled at the weasel in disgust, he was even embarrassed of the way he was carrying in the panic crying weasel like the scared child or like the lady to be rescue, and as an result, Finncik threw with disgust the weasel aside.

The pirates, however, looked Ben while he was casualy walking through of the bushes forward on the road towards the other side of the bush labyrinth.

They were waiting for the stupid yak getting darted and killed by the toxin darts in the seconds...

...but nothing happened.

The yak just kept walking ahead.

And not single toxin dart was shot from the bushes which the yak passed... without even caring about the bushes and their deadly dart traps.

And when Ben finally reached to the other side of the trapped bush labyrinth, unharmed and without getting a one single shot and getting poisoned from the toxin in the dart during of crossing the bush area, the pirates began slowly to realize that Judy had indeed managed to deactivate the dart traps... meaning that the way was clear for the pirates to walk and keep moving on the treasure hunt.

"Sly bunny..." Wilder whispered with the proud smile.

The pirates then stepped one by one into the bush area, Duke in the group's tail, still a bit skeptical and reluctant about the safety of crossing the area or then he was pulled by force from his tail by someone as he refused to cross the bush area full of the traps.

"No, no, no, no, NONONONONONOOO! PLEASE!" Duke pathetically pleaded as he tried to crawl away from this area by grabbing from anything in the ground with his claws, but without avail.

The rest of the pirates were also a bit skeptical as they all skeptically stared at the bushes – in some of which the skulls of the feline predators were partially seen – they passed, fearing still the fact that one of them may at any second suddenly fire their darts at them.

In the another side, Judy decided to tease the pirates one more time.

"C'mon, you lard butts landlubbers! You're killing me with your slug-slow crawl, you flopsy slugs!" Judy shouted from the another side to the pirates as they were in the midway of the route.

Now knowing that the dart traps were now off, the pirates immediately charged towards the bunny, giving up to their burried anger about of Judy's teasings.

They angrily growled!

They angrily roared!

They angrily hissed!

They angrily streched their arms and (clawed) fingers of their paws forward to grab from the bunny's neck into the neck-breaking or to death chocking squeeze.

"WHY YOU LITTLE...!" The whole pirate group loudly snarled in unison as they charged towards the bunny, who was indifferently standing with the sly grin on their way like she was waiting for them to wrap their fingers around of her neck.

Suddenly...

The bunny turned her eyes to the direction where the lever was, and suddenly acted like she was badly surprised about something, which happened in off-screen on the pirates eyes.

"WHOOPS! The monkey just pulled the lever back up, meaning that the dart traps are on again!" Judy shouted to the pirates as there was half of a dozen bushes left for them to pass.

After hearing this, the pirates immediately stopped like to the wall before they reached pass of the next bushes, looking around rapidly, alarmed and panicking that they were now surrounded by the bushes with the hidden, insidious and deadly dart traps, which were – or at least they believed so – turned back on.

During of this, the rhino pirate, who was charging at Judy in the front of the entire group with Redfur, screamed like the girl as he found himself from between of the bushes and in panic he jumped into the arms of surprised Redfur. But because he was a rhino, meaning that he was much bigger and heavier than Redfur, who happened to be the tiger, the weight of the rhino caused Redfur to back off too sharply, that he eventually lost his balance and fell over on his back to the ground, the heavy rhino pirate still in his arms. The rhino landed with his entire weight on the tiger pirate's stomach, pushing with his weight nearly all air out of the tiger.

The tiger let out the loud roar in pain.

"Sorry..." The rhino whispered apologetically.

After witnessing this from aside, Judy tried her best to hold back her laugh with holding her mouth shut with her paws.

But unlike Judy, Ben and captain Flint couldn't hold back their own and both of them bursted out of laugh at this.

Even Wilder, who clearly saw that Judy had just tricked them, laughed slightly himself as well as he passed his "pea-brained" men and walked casually to the another side of the bush area.

Once he was there, he yet again – much to his annoyance that he had to do this once again – tied the nooses around of their necks.

"Now, enough the jokes and keep moving! We have wasted enough of time in here!" The fox pirate said with rugged pirate tone and harshly pushed both Judy and yak on the move forward.

"Keep moving, you cabbage-brains!" Wilder shouted to his crew, as the rhino pirate and heavingly panting and at the bunny and the rhino pirate threateningly growling tiger pirate cralwed on their feets.

Even though the pirates had realized that they were tricked by the bunny to believe that the dart traps were back on and yet they had all fallen to it like the gullible children, they were still a bit skeptical and reluctant to walk through of the remaining bushes... until they eventually passed the remaining bushes without adversities and finally reached to the another side of the area.

From there, they all rushed after their captain and their keys to the treasure, leaving the leopard's body behind.

"No, no, no, no, NONONONONONOOO! PLEASE!" Duke kept pleading while trying in vain to grab from something to prevent himself being pulled with the rest of his fellow piorates, ecven though they had already passed and left the dart trap area behind of them.

* * *

 **Later...**

After surviving with the one loss through the trapped bush area, they had to walk the rest fifteen steps of the trip towards the north.

They did so, Judy and Ben in the group's head, the map in their paws, following every advice which Ben translanted for Judy while Wilder and the rest of the pirates walked right behind of them the guns ready for any new danger they might encounter while walking deeper to the island.

The trip began, moreover, to go a little bit difficult, because the jungle forest of the palm trees started going to dense and darker, blocking with the palm leaves all the light from reaching to the ground and the day was slowly turning into the night... forcing the pirates to use lanterns and torches to light their way forwards in the darkening jungle.

As Ben translated the next zooztec text written to the map in the end route drawn to the map, after of which Ben and Judy found out that map the surface would begin to glow the light as soon as they were near the end of the road and the trove. They also found out that when the map starts to glow, it begans to act like the compass by glowing more brightly on the spot of the direction where they were supposed to go.

Subsequently, they arrived to another open area in middle of the dense palm tree jungle, the swamp which was revealed to be like quicksand and the top layer of this swamp was a sticky mud, which was as sticky like the sticky liquid in some of carnivorous plants for the insects.

Even biggest and strongest elephant in the Caribbean could easily get stuck in the mud and sink into the swamp, to its final, wet and disgusting resting place.

There was strangely stumps of felled trees across the area like footsteps.

And in the middle of the swamp, the line of stumps branched off into four similar lines of stumps to the another side of the area, driwing the pirates again into confusion.

Bust despite their confusion about the look of the open area, like with the previous one, which had its with the deadly dart traps trapped bushes, they were sure that even there was another hidden ancient booby trap waiting for them...

...but they didn't know what kind of booby trap was set in here this time.

Judy searched from the map the rounded area with the a four-pronged line, just like the area in front of them, and showed it to Ben, as well as zooztec writings above of it and allowed Ben to translate the writings.

"Path of the Decisions." Ben eventually said, which was probably this area's name.

"What does it mean?" Judy asked.

"The one who's wise and careful enough always picks the right path carefully, because only one path will lead safely cross the area while the rest ones will take you to your doom." Ben explained as he translated the writings from the map for Judy.

"Probably meaning, only one of those lines of stumps will lead us safely to another side while the two others has some booby trap, right?" Wilder said.

"Well, at least Old Ben assumes that at least one is clean, because it says here that, "the one crossing the sinking swamp, must pass through the swamp by walking through of the crosser's selected path's each step without entering to any step of the non-selected path or else... But what happens after stepping to the non-scelected path's step instead of the selected one's... well, Old ben doesn't have any clue about it." Ben asnwered.

"Then we'll see it. Let's put our luck into the test again." Judy declared as she pulled her noose's loose rope off from Wilder's paw, deciding for this once to carry it around her neck, because she did not want Wilder to tie it up yet again, because he had this time tied it too tight around of her neck that it was nearly squeezing her neck together.

And ignoring Wilder's stern protest and prohibitions to go to the area – ONCE AGAIN only because of his and his crew's chance to finally find Flint's treasure through of her safety from the any life-threatening harm and the yak's safety from his threat of commit suicide if Judy gets fatally hurt – Judy bravely stepped to the stumps and continued slowly moving forward stump by stump, until she was standing in the place where the lines of stumps branched off to the four lines of stumps.

Judy watched each one line of tumps alternately, thinking hardly but carefully.

 _Only one will lead to the safety and rest will take you to your doom,_ Judy muttered in her mind.

Two lines of all three were more than half shorter than the longest one in the left.

First one in the middle led slightly in the lateral direction but still a straight forward, easily and without any bends, to the other side of the swamp, except for the one tiny curve in the middle of the lines of tumps.

Second one in the left turned sharply to the right and made the circular bend in the swamp's right corner before it continued to the another side, right to the left side of the first one.

Third one in the right side seemed to be the longest one, as it turned sharply from the very beginning far to the left side of the swamp before it turned sharply and arcuately back to the going direction, until it took one rotation in middle of the swamp before it continued to the other side of the swamp

The forth one secondly in the right side went forward a serpentinely like a snake, even messing with the two other lines of tumps like in order to make this going to be a difficult for the crossers of the swamp.

Judy kept staring at all four lines for choosing the right one for over fifteen minutes.

However, Judy a bit hesitated to take her first step to the lines and go to cross the swamp through of them, because it was to difficult to choose the path which she assumed to be the right one and harmeless one.

Judy, however, remembered something what her mother once told her.

 _Remember, my dear daughter. Whenever you're lost and you have two paths in front of you and each of which will lead you to your destination, you alwasy come to the question; "which way you would choose?" The one route happens to be shorter while the another happens to be the longest. Anyone always takes the shortest and most direct route because they believe it to be a faster way to your destination, but on the map the most direct route may not be the fastest route. In the short route may lie in wait for who knows what, or else there may be a slow downs which is difficult to cross, while the longer route is revealed to be the most direct and quickest route to the shortest. Therefore, you should always use common sense and think about the easiest route, despite the fact that it may happen to be a longer route._

Remembering this, Judy's attention turned to the longest line of tumps and she, at the same time putting her luck and her dear life into the life-thratening risk, decided to choose to go to the longest line, much to pirates annoyance and Flint and Ben's worry.

Judy at first jumped from the tump she was standing to the first one stump in the left one line of stumps and kept jumping from stump to stup, pausing after every step/jump in every stump and waited briefly for something bad happening, such of one of the stumps revealing suddenly be like the bottle cap in the bottle's mouth, which would sink under of her weight mixed with her jump's power and send her to fall into the pit full of poisonous snakes or pikes or sink to the sinking swamp. She also waited for some hidden trap web hidden under one of the stumps.

However, noithing happened after every jump, at least for now.

She even felt under her feet that couple of these stumps were even slightly shaking under of her weight mixed with her jump's power after she had jumped to them.

During of her crossing, Judy felt how her heart beat rapidly out of stress and high excitement, sweat was pouring down along her face, she breathed fast and almost anguished while jumping from one stump to another.

Still nothing happened, but Judy kept being careful and continued her way.

The spot of the swamp, in which the three routes of stumps were mixed with each others, brought some difficulties for Judy by making her carefully to consider that which steps were the one's she selected to walk through to cross the swamp. She had to choose them carefully, because she did not know and she wasn't willing to know that what kind of insidious booby traps the lines of stumps were containing... and which were easily activated by the one single wrong step.

It took from her at least one hour to figure out the right steps before she was able to keep going.

Eventually, after one and a half of hour, Judy finally reached to another side.

But he was, however, accidentally stepped on the wrong stump and, in shock of the fact that she probably had just activated some booby trap by stepping to the wrong stump, out of her pure rabbit instincts, Judy quickly bounced out of the stump to forward and landed quite roughly on her stomach ot the ground.

At first, Judy rapidly and nearly panicking for no reason checked out herselfto make sure that was she still and surely in one piece.

After learning that she herself was still in one piece, safe and sound and after finding out that one wrong step didn't activate any deadly booby trap, Judy let out the deep breath after another to make herself to calm down, which she eventually did and sighed in deep relief that she had made it across of the deadly swamp.

Then, Judy turned to rest of the group in the another side of the swamp.

"Alright, come through. Remember! Use the longest line of the stumps in the very left. It is the safest one." She shouted at them.

From all a bit hesitating pirates, Wilder, without the hesitation nor fear, stepped to the stumps of the very left line first before the others, with the exception of Ben, who casually walked first before Wilder and the others along the line of stumps.

Captain Flint sitting in the yak's shoulder with the concerned look on his face as the monkey looked down to the swamp's muddy surface.

Then the rest of the pirates, after gathering even some courage to even try, one by one stepped to the line of stumps.

However, from all the pirates, the woodchuck pirate grew by his turn to impatient and tired of slow movement through the lines of stumps in between of his bigger and slower fellow pirates. So, he jumped from Judy's selected lines of stumps to the shortest and most direct line's stumps to get faster to the other side instead of the longest lines.

"Why take the longest route throug hthe swamp when you can alwways use the shortest and the most direct one, dumb bunny?" The woodchuck pirate asked with the rude and mocking tone from Judy, who responded with an angry glare at the pirate.

"Because the fastest and most direct route is not always necessarily the best, the fastest, let alone the safest choice." Judy answered.

The woodchuck pirate let out the disgusted snort.

"Well, whoever told you all that, he or she is more than just wrong, because…" The woodchuck pirate was about to say...

...until something unexpected suddenly happened.

In the fourth and fifth final stumps from the shortest line of stumps, the stumps under the woodchuck's feet and weight suddenly gave up and collapsed into the swamp like the sink hole, and the woodchuck pirate, yelling in sudden panic for help, fell into the ancient and plant and mud filled pit in the swamp and which then was soon closed mechanically by the stone plate, trapping the woodchuck pirate down there… to his own grave.

Judy looked in shock the woodchuck pirate's terrible fate, which could have been otherwise her own fate if she had selected the wrong route of the line of stumps.

Ben, Flint and the rest of the pirates were also shocked after witnessing their fellow crew member's death.

However, Wilder paind a little attention for this, as he grabbed from Judy's noose's loose end and pulled her forward with Ben.

"We have to keep moving!" Wilder yelled, turning his back to what had just a moment ago happened to his own crew member.

The pirates began slowly one by one turn aroud and drag their eyes away from the stone plate on the mouth of the pit, which was soon covered by the mud, completely sealing the pirate inside of the pit and sealing his fate for good, as they followed their captain to the jungle.

As she was dragged after Wilder from the noose around her neck, Judy paid a one last look at the mud covered trap's direction, still a bit shocked about the incident, before she turned her disgusted look towards Wilder... deeply disgusted if his lack of compassion even towards his own men and his blind lust to find Flint's trove.

* * *

 **Later...**

After half of hour about the incident back in the swamp's trap, Wilder and the pirates, Judy, Flint and Ben continued on their way through of the jungle towards the north. The jungle was slowly getting even darker as the sun was setting and the day will soon change for the night, which had forced everyone to grab to the lanterns and torches to light their way into the dark jungle a lot better.

Captain Flint jumped on Judy's shoulder, looking nervously around.

"It's okay, Flint. It's okay." Judy wishpered comfortingly to the monkey as she pet him from top of the monkey's head while walking forward.

Ben then walked to her side.

"Uh, Juicy. Old-Old Ben don't know about you, but Old Ben is starting to see his life pass in front of his eyes. At least, he believed it's his life… DID OLD BEN EVER DANCED WITH THE ELEPHANT LADY NAMED NANGI?" Ben yelled loudly, causing the some of the pirates to turn their warning glares at the yak.

Judy quickly hissed to Ben, referring him to be quiet.

"This isn't over yet." Judy whispered, referring to Wilder with the nod of her head to the fox's direction, who was walking ahead of the group while sniffing the air.

Eventually, he got some scent, that came with the wind at a distance directly from the front of them.

At the same time, Judy eventually spotted that into her paws wrapped map's surface had started to glow the golden light, which greatly amazed her and she quickly opened the wrapped map open immediately.

The golden light, with the unnatural wind and a hollow sound, blowed bringhtly out from the map and which lightened the dark jungle like a golden moon light.

The pirates were badly surprised of this unnatural phenomenon, believing it at first to be the direct hit from the cannonshot in middle of them, and quickly backed away from Judy and the map, raising their weapons into the battle position... until they realized that what had happened in fact.

As Ben told him some time ago, the map's surface was supposed to glow the bright light, even the golden light, which probably was signaling to them that they were close to their destination.

Out of curiosity, Judy tested this possibility by changing the position of the map in her paws in the air and to her great astonishment, she noticed that the bright light in the map indeed changed its location on the map's surface, but remained in place on that direction, where they were supposed to go.

Wilder then moved next to them and peeked over of Judy's and Ben's shoulders to check their location from the map in Judy's paws, only to find it's surface glowing the bright golden light from the point on the map, which even moving the map held its position on the direction to where they were just going.

Eventually, his ears jumped up to the pointed position and he got the wide grin on his face as they walked a bit further forward to the direction of the bright glowing in the map, which eventually started to get blindingly bright.

"We're getting close, lads. I smell treasure awaiting us behind of those trees." Wilder exclaimed and and drew his sword out.

Wilder's crew cheered enthusiastically and triumphantly, knowing that they've finally made it through of the jungle and its dangers and Flint's treasure was just a distance away from their fingers

Wilder then released his grip from Judy's noose's loose end and instead grabbed from her shirt and started to forcefully dragged the bunny forward after him as the fox pirate went to lead the group ahead, causing Judy nearly to stumble with her own steps and she tried to stay on her feet.

Judy tried to struggle herself free from Wilder's grip, but Wilder's grip was too strong for her. There was nearly nothing what she was able to do now but being forcefully dragged after the fox like the rag doll against her own will.

Following their captain's example, the pirates drew out their own swords and started to cleave the way through of the plants with their swords and axes, while they still and loudly cheered and laughed in honor of their triumph.

When the pirates eventually had cleaved their way through of the jungle plants and reached to the other side of the jungle, they noticed that they had arrived right on the foot of the island's volcano.

But once through of the jungle plants, Wilder and the whole crew, including Judy and Ben, suddenly gasped in confusion at a confusing sight in front of their very own eyes.

Continues...

* * *

 **Gotta end the chapter right here.**

 **I hope that you enjoyed the chapter.**

 **The dart trap scene of this story is inspired by the Isla Crucer lever from the Pirates of the Caribbean, The World's Ending Game.  
**  
 **And that "Why you little..." is from the Simpsons.**

 **Fourteenth chapter is on its way and is out soon.**

 **See ya.**


	14. Chapter 14: Stone Map

**HELLO AGAIN TO ALL CURRENT AND UPCOMING READERS, FOLLOWERS, AND FANS!**

 **It's time to continue from where we were left on my fanction TREASURE TROPOLIS**

 **Because fourteenth chapter is now out.**

 **Enjoy of reading.  
**

* * *

Judy, Wilder, Flint, Ben and the rest of the pirates looked what they saw in front of them in deep confusion.

All what their eyes saw was only a pit dug into the sand in next to the foot of volcano and there was the wooden rotten chest in the middle of the pit.

The crew, believing the first chest to be the treasure chest full of the treasures, immediately rushed to the chest, Wilder, Judy, Flint and Ben right behind of them them.

The pirates reached at first to the chest and surrounded the chest from every corner. And because the chest was not locked, the pirates grew extremely greed and impatient to look inside and thus they began to rudely and impatiently push each others out of the way to the ground as they tried to open the chest and see what kind of riches the chest contained.

They eventually managed to impatiently opened the chest, but after that, the crew looked stared inside of the chest wit hthe highly disappointed looks on their faces.

The chest was empty and there was only the black stone key lying in the bottom of the chest.

The key did not interest the pirates and one of them just picked it up from the chest and wit hthe bored manners he threw it away.

The key flied through the air and landed against the stone wall and fell to the sand in next to the volcano's foot.

Some of the pirates then started to either dig more deeper into the sand in bottom of the pit around of the chest while the some of them began to explore the surroundings, hoping to find the footsteps or dropped coins or jewels lying in the sand as leftovers, believing that someone else had already reached to the treasure before them and had stole it from front of their noses.

"Where is it?!" Roared Redfur out of frustration when the pirates didn't dins anything.

"It isn't here! Treasure isn't here! Only rotten chest and stinky key, but not even A SINGLE STINKY COIN!" Duke yelled in disappointment.

Wilder looked at the pit in the sand and the empty rotten chest in the bottom of the pit in confusion...

...until then the fox pirate turned his attention to Judy, who was as well as confused about this sudden event as the pirates.

Judy's confusion just grew even more when she looked down at the map, where the glow suddenly had faded away and completely disappeared. Judy wrapped the map together and opened it again, but much ot her surprise, nothing didn't happen. Judy repeated the wrapping the map together and opening it again three times over, but there was not any kind of glowing in the map nor the formation of the holographic maps anymore.

"WHAT'S GOING ON, CARROTS?!" Wilder growled loudly at Judy, his paws on his hips. The fox pirate believed that Judy was trying to or then she had been tricked them or something all of time ssince the forming the deal between of him and Judy.

However, Judy had not a clue about this.

"Good question, Wilder. I don't get it!" Judy answered nervously and checked the map, completely forgetting the waiting for any kind of glow in the map and checked the place where they probably were at the moment.

Something wasn't right. They were exactly on the place in the map where was X-sign as the sign of the treasure's location. They had followed carefully every advices of the map and finally reached to the location of the X-sign, but the treasure wasn't here.

Then where it was?

"THEN DO SOMETHING, CARROTS! USE THE MAP AND IT'S POWERS TO FIND THE TREASURE!" Wilder angrily demanded, pointing with his clawed finger at the map still in Judy's paws.

"I would if I could, Wilder. But... but the map doesn't do anything. I keep wrapping it together and opening it again and again But the map just refuses to work. It just stopped from glowing like it ran out power. I do not know what it is." Judy complained.

"It just tells us that we are already at the end of the road. And that here is no more advices in zooztec here." Judy added.

The disappointed, frustrated and impatient pirates then turned to glare at Judy and Ben angrily and maliciously.

"What was that you said back in the cave, bunny?! Oh, yeah! May I remind you?! That stinky yak friend of yours have been spent most of his life stuck on this island and thus knowing the every corner of this island, then maybe he knows something about the trove too." The crocodile pirate yelled angrily at Judy.

"Or maybe that yak has found the treasure a long ago before us. Maybe he has stole it from its trove and hidden it to elsewhere! What else did you left without telling me, Carrots?" Wilder demanded to know.

Judy found herself in middle of the bad situation, from which was not the way out through of the honest explanation and self-defense by words, especially among the frustrated and impatient pirates, but she had to try.

"That's exactly what I asked from him the first time I met him, Wilder. No matter how much I tried to urge him to remember anything he knows about the treasure with his "elephant-memory," he do not know nothing much about the treasure because he barely even remembers its current location after being decades strapped in here. I swear it!" Judy tried to explain glaring at Wilder angrily and desperately.

"You two were supposed to lead us to the treasure, not to the single empty rotten chest!" Raccoon brothers yelled in frustration.

"Maybe you two just tricked us all the time only to save your the wretched lives!" Redfur roared angrily.

"We should have never to even listen to this long-eared brat! We should have slash her throat and let her to drain to empty when we still had the chance!" Cheetah yelled in anger.

"And we should've never followed this dumb bunny!" Finnick loudly and angrily growled as he leaped towards Judy and kicked her to the back, causing Judy to fell over to the ground.

The pirates, following Finnick's example, surrounded Judy and started to hammer poor bunny from every corner with the punches and kicks without caring about Judy's still sore arm.

Wild boar pirate hammered with his over bunny's head sized fists Judy roughly to the ground and even trampled her under of his legs.

Raccoon brothers threw the rocks and the balls of mudd at Judy, causing her clothes and fur getting dirty from the mudd and causing the bunny to get bruises from the rocks as she slowly get up from the ground and covering her head from the rocks and mudd balls with her arms and paws.

Cape dog pirate then punched her into the face with the fist.

Crocodile pirate slapped her fiery to the face with his tale, sending her to fly roughly over to the ground again.

Then the rhino pirate grabbed from Judy's ears, roughly and painfully lifting her off the ground and roughly tossed her aside, near of the stone wall. This caused Judy to feel the burning head aches and Judy gritted her teeth when she landed on her still sore arm to the ground.

Finally, the Badger pirate then charged at her and pushed her roughly against the wall, causing her to hit her head to the wall.

Judy let out the loud gyelp in pain and fell on her knees, holding with her paws her head, gritting her teeth in pain as the pain in her head from knocking her head against the stone wall mixed with the head aches from getting roughly and painfully pulled from her ears by the rhino pirate.

The other pirates held with the gunpoint Ben back, preventing the yak to go to Judy's help.

One of them also grabbed Flint from his tail and lifting the monkey up, preventing the monkey as well from going to help Judy.

Wilder looked from aside as Judy get roughly mauled by his own crew, but this time he was less than sympathically or willing to help Judy by orrdering the pirates to stop and leave her alone out of his own frustration, impatience and fury.

"I assume that you and your yak friend probably know that where the location of Flint's treasure's current or new hideout is. So you better to tell us where is it and take us to it, RIGHT NOW!" Wilder threatened, clearly not believing a word of Judy. that Ben had barely even knowledge about the treasure's current or a new hideout.

The pirates then started to impatiently and angrily shout behind of Judy, threatening her with the many unspeakable ways of torture if she doesn't tell them right now that where the treasure really is.

Judy had to come up with something and fast. She knew that their deal with the pirates was either broken or then there was something which blocked their cooperation from progressing.

Judy also knew that now her and Ben's formed protection from Ben's threat to execute suicide on himself if she herself gets fatally hurt and dies with their knowledge about the map's advices and with Ben's knowledge about the island wouldn't work anymore because the pirates, driven by their own greed and impatience, wouldn't listen to her nor to reason anymore.

So, she had to come up with something which could save her and Ben from being torn apart by the pirates.

"NAIL HER TO THE TREE TO HANG FROM HER EARS!" Finnick yelled.

"I'M GONNA SWALLOW HER WHOLE, IF SHE DOESN'T TELL US ANYTHING, RIGHT NOW!" The crocodile yelled in impatience and anger.

"I'LL RIP HER EARS TO SHREDS!" Cheetah pirate threatened.

"LET'S TIE HER TO THE CANNON AND THROW HER TO THE DARKEST ABYSSES OF THE DAVY JONES' LOCKER!" Wild boar yelled.

"I'M GONNA TEAR HER APART, LIMB BY LIMB!" Redfur loudly growled.

"HURRY UP! WHERE'S THE TREASURE?! WHERE HAVE YOU HIDDEN IT?!" The raccoon brothers loudly demanded with the once voice.

"SLASH HER THROAT OPEN! SLOWLY AND PAINFULLY! LEAVE HER TO CHOKE TO HER OWN BLOOD!" Badger urged the others with the threatening tone.

"DIG HER EYES OUT OF HER HEAD WITH THE SPOON!" Spotted hyena pirate growled.

"THROW HER OVER THE CLIFF!" Duke yelled.

"I'LL CRUSH SLOWLY AND ONE BY ONE EVERY BONE OF HER BODY!" Rhino roared.

As the pirates were getting closer, spitting more and more threats out of their mouths, Judy suddenly spotted the key one of them had a moment ago throw away, and she also noticed the small key-hole resembling hole in the wall.

The hole was even big enough for the key to fit in.

Judy picked the key from the ground and looked at the key and then the pirates by looking over of her shoulder - She looked again at the key and then again the pirates, then again the keys, then again the pirates, then again the keys, then again the pirates, then again the keys, then again the pirates, the keys and the pirates over and over until she was left with no another choice.

If the pirates wanted her to do something, they their wish is reluctantly her law.

Judy quickly pushed the key inside of the hole and turned it.

BIG KLIK!

Suddenly, there was heard the deep and loud thunderous sound as the entire area all around of the foot of the volcano started violently to shake under the pirates feets like the earthquake, driving them again into the confusion, and fearing that Judy had unleashed something which will end up to the doom of all of them, they all stepped back to get far away from Judy.

All of them... except Wilder.

Then, the large piece of the stone wall suddenly and unexpectedly loudly separated from the wall and it started slowly and with the loud thundering sound to sink to the ground, revealing from behind of it the hidden cave, at the end of it was a new but larger stone map, which was engraved with the exact details on a stone wall in middle of two zooztec stone pillars. And under of the map appeared standing a large rocky button stand with a ten stone buttons.

The map wall then suddenly started slowly but certainly to push itself out from the hidden cave with the thundering sound until it finally stopped at the mouth of the hidden cave.

The pirates, Judy, Wilder, Flint and Ben looked at it, amazed.

"Oh, have mercy." Wilder mumbled.

As the pirate, He has never seen nor heard anything like this before. He had only head that the zooztecs had the tons and tons of pure gold, a huge temples and several heathen gods... but now the hydraulic stone machinery.

"Another map?" Judy asked from herself in confusion.

 _The map. Stone map. Engraved to the wall. Stone wall. Full of writings in zooztec. And there was ten. Ten stone button in the wall. Under the map._ Judy mumbled in her mind, remembering Ben's mentions about the some kind of map in the stone wall when they first met.

The map was much different than the paper map. What it showed to them was the some kind of labyrinth with numerous of tunnels and the dead ends and there appeared to be a big circled spot in the middle of the map. Above of each stone button seemed to be either the some kind of cave or then some kind of crossroads between of the tunnels.

"It's the new map… and it's… some kind of labyrith." Judy said still with an amazed tone.

"But if there's a labyrinth, then there must be some kind of doorway to enter in." Wilder stated.

The pirates behind of them started once again to mutter with each others impatiently and in frustration, wwhen they realized that there was another block on their way and which they had to solve to get through before they were able to continue, like they did with the booby traps in the jungle.

Several of them were also fearfully tensed, because they knew that trying to solve this problem will cost them more losses and none of them knew that who will be the next to fall victim of this problem.

Judy took the look to the map in the wall. The map was surrounded by wall pictures and writings in the language of zooztecs but these writings were unexpectedly too difficult for even Ben to translate. All of those words, which he was able to translate, were the writings above of the map.

"All what Old Ben is able to get clear of those writings above of the stone map, is that we have to make our own way through of the labyrinth." Ben informed, untilk he took the deeply questioning and confused look on his face.

"That clue does not make any sense, not without the doorway in. How were supposed to make our way through of the labyrinth if there's not the doorway to in? Old Ben senses that there's something familiar in this place, but if Old Ben could remember, Old Beb could be able to figure out the location of the doorway." Ben complained.

Thinking deeply Ben's words about, _making own way through of the labyrinth_ and _doorway_ , Judy jumped on the stone stand and took the observing look as the stone buttons on the stone stand and as a test she decided to push one of them, the one which had the in detail doorway-looking carving, completely inside of the stone, before it pushed back out of the hole.

This act was followed by another the similiar thunderous earthquake-like shaking under their feets, causing the pirates, except Wilder, almost panic.

Suddenly, the huge piece of the stone wall started to move aside and revealed the doorway-like hole, opening the way to the dark smooth-faced corridor which led to deep inside of the mountain. Judy, out of curiosity, pushed the button again and as the result, the doorway closed again.

 _The big stone door… Opening and closing... Leading to the labyrinth._ Judy mumbled in her mind.

Judy then jumped onto one of the stone buttons and started to check better the next button and the map's tunnels.

"Let's see… there's a lot of different tunnels and dead ends, full of the booby traps no doubt. Only one way in but there's dozens different tunnels leading to the dead ends or to the other hidded entrancers." Judy mumbled.

Wilder came closer to check the map by himself too.

"What's taking so long?!" Wilder asked impatiently.

Judy snorted loudly in annoyance and jumped off from the buttom.

"Well, as you can see, dumb fox. There's dozens of different tunnels and dead ends and only one of many of them is said to be leading us safely through of the labyrinth. But it is not entirely certain, because every tunnel, whether safe or not, can undoubtedly be full of booby traps. Besides, this of course takes some time and it requires patience to find out which tunnel of many of those will lead us through of this mess of the tunnels... and make the such of tunnel for us."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Wilder asked, again impatiently.

"That, if I you and your bilge rats will grant to me and Ben some time, I think that reading those engravings in those stone buttons and using them by pushing them in the stone, we may be able to figure out a direct way through of the labyrinth, avoiding all the possible booby traps and time wasting dead ends. It depends on how well me and Ben are able to read those engravings and writings in zooztecs. We need just a little more time and you and your boys need patience if you please." Judy said.

However, Wilder was right that moment less than patient.

"We were supposed to find the treasure, not just stand here and read some writings or engravings in the wall, you dumb bunny! And my men barely even know the word of "PATIENCE!" Wilder barked in anger and frustration.

Wilder then grabbed from Judy's shirt and roughly threw Judy out of his way over to the ground and started without the thinkingf to push the buttons inside of the stone, causing the thunderous sound to grow even louder and greater and the whole ground under of their feet shake five times stronger and the shaking also dropped some boulders from the hills above of them.

The pirates quickly backed off to avoid the rolling boulders.

Judy, jumping on her feet while glaring Wilder with angry look in her eyes, managed to barely dodge some the huge falling boulders and she rushed back to the buttoms to stop Wilder before he causes the rock slide, which will either bury or even destroy the map and then it was all for nothing...

...just because of one dumb fox!

"EASY! EASY! Take it easy, Wilder! You might cause a rock slide which can possibly either bury the map under the boulders or even crush the map and the buttons and us at the same time. And if that happens because of you alone and your lust for gold, then everything has been in vain and we'll never be able to find the treasure. Is that what you want YOU DUMB FOX?!" Judy angrily and with the scolding tone yelled at Wilder while trying to get the fox pirate to stop before he brings the whole mountain down.

Wilder turned to Judy, angry expression on his face.

"And I am interested only to know one thing, dumb bunny! WHERE IS THAT BLASTED TREASURE?!"

"Treasure! Treasure! So that's what we were after all of time?!" Ben suddenly yelled, right next to Judy.

Judy rolled her eyes and let out the sigh in unbelief, that even though Ben had been walked the whole long way with them from his home cave and helped all of them to continue through of the jungle and its dangers by translating all the writings in zooztecs in the original map, Ben had already forgot that they've been all of time searching for the treasure.

"That's why this place seemed a suspiciously familiar to Old Ben… and the treasure! The treasure! It's… burried in the center of the stony mechanism... into gigantic fiery stone room!" Ben said loudly and hardly thinking, probably the sign that yak's recollections about this place had began to slowly return to his so called elephant's mind.

The pirates were eagerly gathered around of Ben to hear more or ask that where the treasure was burried if the yak actually knew its location. However, the pirates were again frustrated, but also highly confused about "in the center of mechanism" and "in the gigantic fire room."

"What that gigantic fiery stone room even means?" Spotted hyena pirate asked from his fellow pirates who were as confused as the hyena.

"Not a clue." Finnick said, asking from himself in his mind that the very same question.

"I was actually going to ask from you." The fennec fox pirate added.

"Probably some kind of stone hall, who knows." Cape dog pirate guessed.

"And what did he even mean with that "fiery?" Or did he meant "fire?" The bonfire in the hall?" The rhino pirate guessed

Judy started to quietly think again the words she had heard earlier from Ben and now.

 _Burried in the gigantic fiery stone room… the gigantic fiery stone room... without the word, fiery... gigantic stone room... maybe it means some kind of huge underground cave._ Judy mumbled quietly.

She then turned to the large circled spot in the stone map.

The bunny looked at the circled spot in the map for a long moment, thinking deeply about Ben's mentions of this "gigantic fiery stone room," about which the yak had mentioned spoken of something already during of their first meeting.

"Juicy, what is Juicy thinking?" Ben asked from Judy after he noticed that the bunny had turned her back to all of them and had her eyes locked into the map and her mental self had immersed deep into her thoughts to solve this mysterious problem about the maps purposes and Ben's own unclear memories about the treasure's location that she didn't either heard Ben calling her name or she simply just ignored the yak.

The bunny was like there was no one else around of her.

Ben walked to Judy and knelt down at the same level with her head.

"Old Ben repeats, what is Juicy thinking?" Ben asked again, near of Judy's left air.

Ben's voice suddenly snapped Judy out of her thoughts, but instead of being startled and annoyed of ben's sudden appearance right next to her, the bunny turned around to the yak and opened her mouth to ask something from him...

...if Ben even had the answers for such of question she had in her mind.

"Ben? You wouldn't happen to remember if in your gigantic fiery stone room wouldn't happen to be something yellow and shiny? Anything?" Judy asked from Ben, out of curiosity and hoping something positive coming from Ben's mouth.

Ben immediately began to search the answers for Judy's questions from his mind.

"Well… let Old Ben to think for while… uh… uh… uh… uh… uh… uh… kind of, uh… uh… uh… a huge coffee cup… in the top of the stone pilar… uh… uh… uh… rising from the river… red and hot river. Remember, must not touch, and… uh… uh… uh… in middle of the fiery stone room… uh… uh… uh… filled with the… some kind of... uh… uh… uh… honey-colored beverage or so. That brings to Old Ben's mind about the wooden cub filled with honey from the beehives. It's delicious, but it's pretty painful task to get it." Ben said, stuttering in his words while going through many recollections of the tressure's location in his mind, which were "mixed" with the recollections of his lone life in the island or almost fallen into oblivion.

These new information put Judy to think more harder, putting slowly but certainly the pieces of this mystery piece by piece in place.

 _Honey-colored beverage… in the stone cub… in middle of the fiery stone room… the red river… must not touch... burried in the central of stony mechanism._ Judy mumbled.

Judy kept thinking...

...kept thinking...

...kept thinking...

...kept thinking...

...kept thinking...

...then she considered alternatives and guesses...

And then...

The sly grin started to slowly appear to Judy's lips, after she was slowly starting to realize that what all of these, Honey-colored beverage… in the stone cub… in middle of the gigantic fiery stone room… the red river… must not touch... burried in the central of stony mechanism, actually meant.

"What if... if this "red river" and the warning "must not touch" means in fact the lava river… and that "gigantic stone room" might mean the giant underground cave… and the honey-colored beverage in the stone cub in the top of the rock pilar must mean then gold or something close of that…"

"Then that means..."

Every pirate, even Wilder, hold their breaths as they were waiting for the answer from the bunny.

Then Judy's ears jumped up after she finally realized it.

"That's it!" Judy loudly exclaimed.

"I know where the treasure is! The original map was only supposed to lead us to the another map. And judging from Ben's recollections and mentions about the appearance of the treasure's location, the red hot river means lava river, and the lava rivers are only within the volcanoes and in the surrounding area of the volcanoes during of the eruptions. The giant stone room means the gigantic cave, honey-colored beverage means the gold and stony mechanism means the hydraulic system inside of the labyrinth, judging from the stone map in the wall. And if we places all pieces together, that means that Captain Flint's treasure is burried inside of the volcano! TO THE CIRCLED AREA IN THE END OR MIDDLE OF THE MAP'S LABYRINTH!" Judy declared excitedly and wide smile on her lips.

Upon hearing that the treasure was in tinside of the volcano, the pirates at first looked at each others in confusion... until they immediately grabbed to their dropped pickaxes from the ground and started to hack with them the rock wall from the same place where the doorway was half an hour ago opened.

They kept doing that, though in vain, but were immediately stopped in their tracks when the handles of their pickaxes snapped in half from hardly hacking their tools against the stone wall, leaving not to it nearly any damage.

But the pirates weren't gonna give up, even though they lost their shovels and pickaxes, so they began to beat the wall with their fists... which was totally useless.

Wilder tried to get his men to stop and calm down, but the pirates were too immersed to hacking the wall with their fists while roaring loudly that they didn't heard or didn't care of what Wilder said.

It was then when Wilder got their attention and managed to calm the, down by grabbing to his pistol and firing with it the loud shot into the air.

Once the crew had stopped their useless beating the walls, Wilder turned to Judy.

"Alright, Carrots. Now when we all know that where the treasure is but there's still the hydraulic and probably booby-trapped labyrinth between of us and Flint's trove. So, the question is… THAT HOW BY THUNDER ARE WE SUPPOSED TO GET THERE?!" Wilder loudly and out of the frustration demanded to know, referring with his paw to the stone map of the labyrinth.

Judy let out the gentle and short-lasted giggle.

"Well, at least we cannot dig our way to the centar of the volcano. It will take a months and as you said, your boyd do not know the word patience as well as you neither have not the patience to wait so long, huh?" Judy asked with the sly smile on her lips.

Then she gently pushed the fox pirate aside as she walked towards the map.

" As I asked, just grant to this "dumb bunny" and Old Ben a little more time to check this out, to go through this and to find out our way through of the labyrinth in peace. And would our the fox captain be so nice that he could keep himself and his impatient boys under control." Judy proposed, smiling cunningly at the fox pirate, who looked at the rabbit with the dumbfounded expression on his face.

"Plllleeeeeeaaaase." Judy added with the pleading tone, dropping her ears down, widening her eyes and her smile, trying to make so irresistible cute look on her face as possible, that even the stone-hard and bloodthirsty pirate couldn't resistance it with the single look at the bunny's face.

However, Wilder tried to resistance it by looking at elsewhere, but the newfound softer side within himself forced him to turn his eyes to Judy's cute-looking faces.

Judy even refused to take her eyes off him, as she kept looking the cute to the fox pirate.

Judy kept looking ute while Wilder kept his desperate resistancing of it for the fifteen minutes.

Eventually Wilder let out the loud snort as the sign of giving up, though reluctantly.

"FINE!" Wilder growled.

"Have your time, sweetheart, but be quick. Because I assume you being well aware how long the patience of the pirates will last and how sensitive their trigger finger is." The fox pirate added.

"Thank you." Judy tanked and turned to the map.

"Oh my god, what I was thinking?! I certainly will not do that anymore, at least not for two years, this I swear! Lucky that none of my friends back in home weren't at the presence seeing that." Judy muttered in self-pity, because she has never done like that in anyone's presence, except with her family, that looking cute. She, in fact, hated doing that in the presence of non-bunnies and being called cute by the other animals... and Judy had already explained to everyone throughout her life a hundred times or so that... "a bunny can call another bunny cute, but when other animals do so it, it's a little... embarrassing."

But much to Judy's annoyance, none never listened her back home. She still remembered hearing with her super sensitive ears someone peeking over his/her shoulder and calling her silently with hthe word... "cute."

Judy and Ben started then to check the map once again while Wilder reluctantly tried to keep his own patience and his men under control.

Judy started at first to check the carvings in the buttons.

The next button in the left side of the certain button, which Judy had at first as a test pushed inside of the stone and got the doorway into the labyrinth open, had the engraving of the vertical lines which resembled the bars like the jail's bars. Because it was the first in the line of these buttons and the doorway was opened from the next button, this button was probably to be used only once and its purpose most likely served as the prison for careless ones.

So Judy ignored this one and focused to the third button.

From the next seven buttons, only three had the engravings of crossroads, but the button between of third and fifth buttons had the engravings, which resembled the bridge with the weird swirl-resembling engraving. It was carved under of the bridge's engraving, meaning that it possibly was one of the booby traps inside of the labyrinth.

The next button between of fifth and seventh buttons had the engraving which was a bit difficult to read because it resembled the crescent but in the wrong position.

"What's that engraving supposed to mean, Ben?" Judy asked from Ben.

"Not a clue, Juicy. "The moon falling from the sky" Old Ben asssumes or something. Otherwise… Old Ben doesn't have a clue." Ben simply.

Judy rolled her eyes and sighed in annoyance, guessing already that Ben doesn't have any idea about this one engraving, if not all engravings.

She almost wished that Otterton was here at the moment to help her with these because he probably had something clue about these carvings

Judy checked then the next one button between of sixth and eighth buttons. It had the engraving that resembled somekind of floor with the six holes meaning the doorways no doubt. It was probably the mix of the crossroad and somekind of a new booby trap.

And the ninth button's engraving showed only the the wall… nothing sense about the engraving of the stone wall.

But knowing that the pirates short temper and the patience will not last forever, Judy immediately took the action.

"Ben, can I jump onto your head because I have to figure the right tunnel through of this labyrinth. You have to now follow closely my every instructions through of this, and I mean it, _CLOSELY._ And when I say "push that button," you must push only one button I meant inside of the stone and for the second time if necessary. Got it?" Judy explained seriously to the yak, hoping that she did not need to explain everything through yet again.

Ben had silently listened everything Judy had advised him to do, and mentally repeated them to himself in his mind for a while, before he opened his mouth to answer to Judy.

"Of course, Juicy. Juicy stand on Old Ben's head and Juicy tells when to push the button Juicy meant. Old Ben understands" Ben answered nearly immediately.

Judy let out the sigh of relief for not needing to explain to this yak everything she had just advised him to do over and probably over, over, over and over again.

Ben then kneeled and bowed a bit down, so that Judy was able to climb onto his head, after which the yak stood upright.

Maybe a bit too rapidly, causing Judy to struggle to have her balance.

Once reaching to their current position on the map, Judy started at first make her way through of the map's tunnels by marking her way with her finger… slowly and carefully, thinking twice and carefully before acting… until she reached to the positions of the third and fourth buttons.

Judy at first checked out that was there another way through of the fourth button's position's possible booby trap and at the same time she also checked that to where the other tunnels led.

She found out that the left tunnel in the first crossroad was surprisingly leading to another side of the fourth button's position.

By studying the map's crossroad, Judy found that there was a holes in the place of every entrance of the tunnel in the crossroad, probably meaning that they're all closed like the doorway in currently.

"Push third button inside once at first." Judy said to Ben, pointing with her finger the third button.

Ben did as he was told to do and pushed the button into the stone.

As the familiar shaking shook the ground under of their feet, Judy had to fight to keep her balance on Ben's head by holding from his horns.

When she finally managed to regain her balance, her eyes returned to the map and she noticed that two stone pieces pushed out from the holes. Probably it opened in that crossroad two tunnels, one of which had just incoming direction and the right tunnel.

Judy's ears jumped up out of curiousity.

"Interesting… try again." Judy said.

Ben pushed the thrid button in the stone yet again and ignoring, or trying her best to ignore, the ground's shaking, Judy saw that the stone piece in the place of the crossroad's right side's tunnel's doorway slowly sinked back in the hole and the left tunnel's doorway opened afterwards.

"Take me to the fifth and sixth buttons, Ben." Judy said and Ben moved slowly and carefully to the front of the buttons.

Judy continued to make the way with her finger until she reached to the new crossroad.

This time, after the moment studying the map, Judy found out that the closed tunnels in the right and left side of the crossroad didn't led forward but right to the dead ends and only one way to continue was the straight ahead taking tunnel, which led to the location of the crescent engraving.

Judy let out the sigh in frustration, knowing that they had to go right that way, even though they had not any clue of that what was that crescent engraving or what was its purpose.

However, Judy took one of her motto's, "She who is afraid does not gamble" into action and turned to Ben.

"Ben, push the fifth button to open the tunnel which leads pass of that crescent-thing and then push sixth buttons inside once. They probably opens the way and deactive this crescent-thing, if it's in fact somekind of booby trap." Judy said and Ben pushed both buttons inside one by one.

Ben had to, however, push the fifth button inside of the wall four-five times - because he accidentally pushed the same button inside twice when the tunnel which Judy wanted Ben to open was opening and accidentally closed it again, much to the bunny's annoyance - before the doorway of the arrival direction and the straight ahead taking tunnel's doorway leading to the crescent-thing were completely opened, and once they were, he stopped right at there.

Judy, desperately hoping that that odd crescent-thing, whatever it is, was completely deactived and harmless, continued making the way with her finger to the next ones buttons, The mix between of the booby trap and crossroad.

Judy took the look at it in the map in the stone wall. The direction in between of these buttons seemed to be the circled area near of the biggest one.

"Push at first seventh button inside and let's hope that it deactived's this next one's possible booby trap or traps whatever they are and opens us the safe way… push then the eighth button inside that one of these doorways gets open that I can check that which one of these tunnels will lead to the big circled area or even near of it. I think I have to go through all the tunnels one by one if necessary. You just wait and don't even touch to the eight button until I say so. Got it?" Judy said to Ben.

Ben only nodded, with the goofy-looking expression on his face.

After Ben had pushed seventh button in the stone and then eight button inside of the wall, Judy started once again slowly and carefully make her way through of the curved and winding tunnels one by one.

It was a pretty hard to stay focused even in one tunnel's going, because these tunnels were like spaghetti on the bottom of the boiler. And Judy also lost her way with the tunnels, twice and nearly third time, much to her annoyance and frustration as she had to start over and over again.

These labyrinthic tunnels were probably that booby trap, which was supposed to get the intruders to lost in their tracks.

Finding the way to the end of the every tunnel took some time - more likely a lots of time - which highly tested Judy's patience.

As her full focus was in these tunnels, she did not notice that her right foot thumped rapidly against Ben's head out of near-frustration and annoyance.

From her right eye corner, Judy saw that Ben was about to even "touch" to the eight button, much to her (mix of) annoyance and shock. So, to prevent the yak messing anything anymore like he once did moment ago with the fifth button, Judy took her eyes and focus off the map and quickly executed the fiery kick above of the yak's right eye.

Ben grunted in pain and slightly swung his head backwards, which was enough to cause Judy to nearly lose her balance on Ben's head, which Judy was barely able to regain by falling on her knees and grabbing from the yak's horns to avoid falling off the yak's head.

As Ben stopped swinging his head and rubbed with his arm the sore spot to which Jucy had kicked with her foot, Judy stood up as well, but she found out that she had lost her tracks in the map...

...much to her annoyance!

"OH SWEET CHEESE AND CRACKERS!" Judy shouted out, knowing that she had to start over again with the tunnel, she was studying currenty...

...and ionly because of the pea-brained yak with the poor memory.

Judy duriously ignored Ben's apology and went back to work of finding the way through of this labyrinth within labyrinth to find the way to the big circled area.

This whole thing, with couple of the precious time wasting accidents thanks to Ben, took almost an hour from her to figure out where the tunnels lead.

However, after Judy had finally checked all tunnels, she found out that four of them, one from the left and all three from the right, led to the dead ends, above of which seemed to be the same holes like above of the crossroad engravings and their pieces were pushed outside of the stone map.

Because there wasn't any kind of buttom controlling them, Judy assumed that to the dead ends leading tunnels themselves were the booby trap for the careless ones to their final tombs.

Only one of the tunnels were shorter than the others. It ended two dozen steps forward from the doorway to a dead end, but unlike the other dead ends, this one was without the filled hole marking the booby trap... but that didn't meant that there wasn't booby trap... trap door in the floor, to down pushing spikes, against of each others pushing walls, another snake nest like the one back in the jungle or something else.

It in fact was the first one which Judy checked first before the others and immediately ignored it completely after finding out that it was useless tunnel.

Meanwhile...

The pirates sitting aside were starting to get impatient and frustrated of this waiting and many of them, if not all of them, started to take out their pistols and muskets and load their ready to fire and take the knifes out as warning move for Judy and Ben and hoping for them to keep hurry or else...

Ben noticend this very well.

"Keep hurry, Juicy! Bad boys are impatient and serious with that threat!" Ben urged and by Judy's nod, he pushed once again the eighth button and Judy started once again to figure her way to the larger circled area in the map… starting the midmost doorway from the left... and the last tunnel.

And because it was the last tunnel, Judy started to fear that this tunnel would also end to the dead end as well, which would reveal the gloomy truth that there is no way through the labyrinth to the large cirlced area in the map.

It took sweaty fifteen minutes...

...her right foot thumped rapidly...

...her nose twiched rapidly...

...the drops of fresh sweat ran along her head...

...her way-marking paw shook as he kept moving her finger along the way in the map...

...until Judy finally found the way through of with each others confusingly crossing tunnels, which led straight to the largest circled area of the map.

Judy's eyes widened and her ears jumped upright out of excitement as she slowly started to realize that...

...she had finally, after less or over two hours, found the way through of the labyrinth!

Judy's ears dropped when she sighed in relief...

...but she quickly recovered from it after seeing that Ben was once again, to her shock, about to touch the eight button like he was about to push it in.

Now when a safe road was finally made through the stone map's labyrinth and to the large circled area after couple sweaty hours, Judy was absolutely not gonna allow Ben to mess again with the eight button by closing the right tunnel's doorway, and forcing them to push the eighth button inside of the stone over and over again until the right tunnel's doorway would be open again.

But because a safe road was finally made through the labyrinth - which could have been much more easier if on the spot would been nearby a remains of the old campfire full of blackened wood, which Judy would have used to draw with the blackened wood, like with the pen in the paper, the black line through of the map to mark a safe tunnel from the main doorway of the labyrinth to the large circled area, without the need to go through the tunnels over and over again despite interferences - there was no need for using the violence anymore to stop the yak from doing anything unwise and foolish by kicking the yak's head, Which she already did a moment ago when Ben almost messed up the whole thing with the eight button.

So, Judy jumped off Ben's head and landed next to him, and she quickly, but gently, grabbed from Ben's arm and held it back before he managed to even touch to the eight button, gently shaking her head at the yak in the means of "No."

They both then walked to the next and ninth button, which was located right beneath of the spot, which was located to between of the large circled area's possible doorway in and the end of a safe tunnel, which meant that there was final doorway to Flint's trove...

...and with a deep relief, the yak and bunny pushed the ninth button together inside of the stone wall.

Both of them were so relieved that the job was finally done - plus so excited to know that what kind of riches were waiting for them in the volcano - that they failed to notice the tenth button, which did not have any kind of engravings.

Meanwhile, already impatient Wilder finally walked towards of them in order to demand the answers from the yak and especially from the bunny.

"Well? How does this progress? You two better have good news and answers, because this has already took more than a long couple hours! My men are starting to get uncontrollably impatient and having more than just enough of these shaking of the ground and all of this waiting for you two getting this map-thing done."

"So, do you two have finally some answers that how BY BLASTED THUNDER we are supposed to get to the treasure within the volcano?!" Wilder asked at Judy, glaring at her with the impatient expression.

Judy returned to Wilder's glare with her own glare of distrust and hate, plus annoyed of all of this unnecessarily urgent chivvying because of these blasted pirates own selfish, impatient and greed lust for that treasure, before she took the sly smile on her lips and moved towards the doorway's button.

"Yes, yes we do, dumb fox!" Judy answered, as she gently pushed Wilder out of her way.

"All what you need to do is to go a bit backwards, calm down, be patient, think carefully... and just, open the doorway and step inside." Judy said and pushed the button inside of the stone, opening the doorway inside of the dark labyrinth.

The pirates quickly stood up after noticing that the doorway in the volcano was open again, and they all gathered to the front of the doorway, looking inside of its darkness.

But before anyone of them stepped inside, Judy rip her shirt's right sleeve, wrapped it in the ball around of the head of the stick Judy picked up from lying nearby in the ground, and lit it to fire.

Then, Judy was about to enter inside of the cave first ,until…

"Hold on, Carrots!" Wilder exclaimed as he grabbed from her shoulder and pulled her back outside, so that he was able to tie a noose, once again and much to Judy's annoyance and misery, back around of Judy's neck and he did the same thing to Ben.

"I though you weren't gonna tie those things around of our necks, Wilder!" Judy exclaimed in annoyance and frustration.

"Yes, yes I did, fluff. But in the labyrinth, where is easily to lost the trail despite you two having finally found the way through of it, I need you two to stay close of me and walk ahead of me, so that I can keep an eye on you and that you can show us the way through of the labyrinth to the big circled area on the map. Don't even think about the running away and trying to lose us in the labyrinth's tunnels, because I've ordered my men to have their muskets and pistols loaded, ained at your direction and their sensitive trigger fingers prepared to fire… so, no tricks! Understand?!" Wilder barked harshly and threateningly.

Judy glared at the fox pirate angrily. Wilder's threats had no much of effect to her which quite impressed Wilder. Only a few bunny laughed at the face of death like Judy did all of time since of the agreement of their cooperation back in the cave.

But knowing that the pirates still had the upper hand, all what Judy was able to do was reluctantly nod in understandment... and so did also Ben, a bit fearfully of course, fearing that his earlier theat of commit suicide on himself, if Judy gets somehow mortally hurt, had just became completely pointless now when they were so close of their goal.

As the pirates prepared their handmade torches and were preparing to enter the caves, Wilder ordered from his men the rhino and the crocodile pirates to stay outside in the watch, much to their annoyance that they were denied the opportunity to see the treasure what they had waited most of the entire voyage, and referred to the others to follow him, Ben Judy and Captain Flint, who had climbed on Judy's good shoulder, inside of the cave.

And then, with the torches, the pistols and the swords in their paws and led by Judy, Ben and Wilder, the pirates entered to the labyrinth, ready to face its dark caves and tunnels, the possible and hopefully deactivated booby traps… and their possible upcoming grave within the stone.

Continues...

* * *

 **Gotta end the chapter right here.**

 **I hope that you enjoyed the chapter.**

 **In the next chapter, we follow Judy, Ben, Captain Flint, Wilder and his pirates through of the labyrinth to Flint's trove and** **we will also get to know something about my story version of famous pirate, Captain Flint's backstory and the high secret.**

 **Be patient, because the fifteeth chapter is on its way and is out soon.**

 **See ya.**


	15. Chapter 15: The Loot of the Seven Seas

**HELLO AGAIN TO ALL CURRENT AND UPCOMING READERS, FOLLOWERS, AND FANS!**

 **It's time to continue from where we were left on my fanction TREASURE TROPOLIS**

 **Because fifteenth chapter is now out.**

 **Enjoy of reading.**

* * *

Judy, Ben, Flint, Wilder and the rest of the pirates walked straight ahead of the tunnel until they reached to the first crossroads. In there, to the right and forward leading tunnels were, as expected, closed by the stony doors but the tunnel in the left wasn't, so they had to walk to there.

The tunnel was quite curved like rainbow, but it had also in the middle-way the large hole in the wall, which was like the glass-free window to the another cave next of this tunnel… and this cave was revealed to be the cave above of the button which button which had the mysterious swirl-like engraving, which was at now revealed to be the maelstrom in the small lake under the narrow stone bridge shaped by nature and surrounded by the sharp pointed rocks

"So, that's why that swirl-carving seemed to be very familiar." Judy said looking at the swirl and quite sure that the stony bridge itself was probably weak to hold any kind of or lots of weight on it and was supposed to break under the feet and sent the careless ones into their watery grave.

It also reminded Judy about the moments in the hurricane they encountered during of the voyage through of the Caribbean Sea until here. Especially the moment when she saved Wilder, when he fell overboard to the stormy sea, from getting drowned or getting lost to the sea from the ship during the violent storm… maybe the big mistake from her at that moment, judging from their current situation.

"Keep moving!" Wilder said pulling from the noose around of Judy's and Ben's necks, nearly causing Judy to fall on her nose to the ground. Much to bunny's annoyance and anger towards that fox.

They kept going on the tunnel until they finally reached to the end of the tunnel, only to find out that it led them only to the dead end, and only one way out of there was the another tunnel, which happened to be above of them but out of their reach.

And when the pirates realized that they did not think to take the rope and grappling hook to climb to the doorway, and there wasn't even ladders left behind by the builders of this labyrinth – and if there were ladders here, they would have weakened for centuries and would therefore be useless – the pirates were then once again starting to grow frustrated and impatiently demanding the answers for their question…

"How to proceed from here?"

But before everyone's eyes turned accusingly towards Judy, everybody saw that bunny was already investigating the wall on the left side of the tunnel and under of the doorway to another tunnel's doorway above of them. Much to everybody's, even Ben's, confusion.

After the little moment of investigating the wall, Judy suddenly found the paw-sized piece of stone, which was pushed out of the wall, and probably out of the deep hole behind of it. The similar button like those ones outside under of the stone map… only error of it was that there was no engravings in this button, so it made Judy to wonder that what might happen if she pushes the button in.

However, not wanting to delay the pirates patience to the murderous level like back in outside before they found the map, Judy quickly pushed the stone button in the stone and stepped back to see that what they got here.

And suddenly, following current act, out of the wall beneath of the second tunnel's doorway pushed out the stone ladders in front of the pirates, Wilder, Ben and smiling Judy.

"Does anyone of you bilge rats knows how to climb?" Judy asked sarcastically as she, ignoring the noose around of her neck, moved forwards to the ladders and started to climb up the ladders, Flint on her left shoulder, as Ben, Wilder and the rest of the pirates followed her right behind of her climbed along the ladders to the doorway.

After walking some time through of that tunnel, in which was many dark sideways which nearly got them lost, the group eventually arrived to the next crossroad, where the other doorways except the straight forwards leading one were closed.

Despite Judy's suspicions of that tunnel and her fears about the tunnel's safety, because she remembered this crossroad from the map and the spot from the map beneath of which was the button with the weird and ominous engraving, they were all about to enter to the long and a bit larger tunnel, which much to their surprise was empty and seemingly harmless...

…until Ben suddenly stopped Judy and everyone else.

"Juicy… everybody… take the look. To above of the doorway" Ben said and pointed with his finger to the writings carved to the wall above of the doorway of the tunnel… and it was all in the language of zooztecs.

"What does it say?" Judy asked.

Luckily, Ben was capable to translate these words and immediately started to translate the writings for ten minutes.

"Something about… "Tunnel will allow only wise, patient and careful one, who is considered as worthy for the secrets in the end of the tunnel, to pass. But the arrogant, impatient and careless ones will be doomed and claimed by the tunnel." Ben said.

" but don't ask from Old Ben the question that "What that's supposed to mean with the large empty tunnel?" Because Old Ben doesn't have a clue nor any memory of this one." Ben said.

Judy took the look to the tunnel and started to think of their situation and the tunnel very carefully.

"This tunnel's location was right above of the button with that odd crescent engraving in it. So, the reason why I'm afraid of the safety of this tunnel, is that the engraving in the button might mean the some kind of weird but notorious booby trap." Judy said, looking instinctively around.

"Well, it seems clear to me. Now keep moving!" Wilder said and pushed both Judy and Ben to move ahead of him and the rest of the group, much to bunny's annoyance.

"Wilder, wait! Wait you big stupid, arrogant, impatient and careless fox! Listen to me! It might seem to be clear but maybe it is supposed to seem clear to those who're not wise, patient and careful enough. Got it, Wilder?" Judy said with the frustrated tone.

However, Judy's words fell to the deaf ears of the fox.

"Are you saying that this quite harmless looking tunnel hides the some kind of booby trap for us?" Wilder asked with the mocking tone and Judy nodded as an answer with the serious look on her face.

"Well, whatever booby trap is hidden in here, I assume that you and your yak friend probably already deactivated it. And that means, that we have nothing to be worry about any kind of deactivated booby trap." Wilder proclaimed, clearly with arrogant tone.

However, Judy wasn't agreed with Wilder's claim.

"Wilder! Listen to me! I'm not sure did me and Ben deactivate the possible booby trap hidden in here, so we have to be wise, patient, careful and…" Judy tried to say, but Wilder didn't paid any attention to her nor her advices anymore.

He only pushed her impatiently forward so hard that she had difficulties to keep her balance.

"JUST KEEP MOVING!" Wilder barked, as he passed Judy and pulled from the noose, tightening the rope around of her neck.

Judy continued the walking, which was more like being dragged from the rope before she was pulled ahead of the group, as the rest of the pirates, alarmed by Judy's suspicious about the possible booby trap but with the impatient lust for the treasures, followed their captain and entered to the tunnel.

As they reached to the middle-way of the tunnel, Judy kept an eye her feet, watching out for and trying to avoid the possible hidden buttons in the floor for the careless ones, which was a bit difficult because Wilder just continued to pushing her forward.

Judy's own patience was threatening to run out with this fox's impatience and arrogance.

And knowing that she would nothing else but waste her time by trying to reason with the fox pirate, to who her advices had only so far fell to the deaf ears, but she had to try.

"Don't you understand, Wilder?! You might be at the moment walking straight into the booby trap, which is blinded in your eyes by your own arrogance, impatience and greed. You need to have some patience if you want to reach to that treasure and listen to me, unless you want to be shorter than what you are right now… without your head." Judy tried once again reason with Wilder, who just ignored her.

"Was that one the threat, fluff-butt?!" Wilder asked looking to Judy's eyes furiously.

Judy did not answer but stared to Wilder's eyes with an angry look in her eyes and face, really frustrated and angered of such of treatment from the fox, to whom she had trusted like her best friend and even father in the half-way of their voyage to this island. Judy couldn't believe that how she had ever learned to trust one, who now treated her like such of slave or dog in the chains... and all of this because of his own arrogance, impatience and the greed lust for the treasure.

"In fact, it was!" Judy said with a dead serious tone. "So, all what you need to get to that treasure, is having some patience and being careful with own words and steps and not foolishly to rush straight to the possible danger and booby trap like some kind of headless or brainless chicken!"

Wilder, however, spit to this with disgust.

"For the last time, Carrots, keep your mouth shut and keep moving! I mean it! Because my men and me are starting to get every passing minute sick of this waiting and that word "patience" is very strange for the treasure-hunting pirates." Wilder said harshly and with the venom in his voice.

"That's what I am talking about, Wilder. You must have some patience until we reach to another side of this labyrinth. And if you don't have such of thing, that arrogance, impatience and carelessness will be the ultimate end of yours, as well as the end of mine and probably the doom for everyone else around of us!" Judy tried to reason.

Wilder then grew more and more frustrated impatient.

"I SAID, KEEP MOVING, DAMN RABBIT!" Wilder barked and out of the frustration and anger, Wilder roughly kicked Judy with his foot, sending her to fly forward a small distance away from the rest of the group, thanks to the noose around of her neck, which tightened so tight around of her neck as she flew forward away from the rest of the group and stumbled to the ground as a result… much to Ben's and Flint's worry and the crew's fun.

But secretly to everyone, Wilder was snapped out of his anger, arrogance, impatience as he realized what he had done and he started to feel inside of himself the spark of feeling of guilt for doing this to Judy after she had tried desperately to reason with him about the possibly not-so safe passing of the tunnel… and he was too arrogant and impatient to pay even a attention to her. Wilder knew that at least now there was not any chance for him to earn bunny's forgiveness.

But when Wilder landed his leg to the floor, he accidentally stepped onto what Judy had been afraid. the hidden stone button on the floor.

Wilder realized much to his surprise that to what he had stepped into, but was too late to remove his leg off the button before his step's weight had pressed it down.

That act was followed by the notorious voice of "klick," meaning that something had been activated… and it was followed by the loud and shivers-giving sharp sounding voice of the large blade slashing something.

All the pirates were in the seconds alerted and holding their pistols and swords in their paws, ready to defend themselves against whatever caused such of noises.

After Wilder raised his head from the button to Judy, he saw that Judy was standing right next to the huge crescent-like blade, which had fallen from the ceiling of the tunnel and landed right before of Judy, almost cutting off Judy's torch-wielding arm and almost slashing Judy's insteps in half.

The blade had cut Judy's torch in half, which burning top-side was the blade's another side.

Judy stood in a catatonic state as she watched her reflection from the blade, shocked about the fact that what nearly happened to her, until she snapped out of it and turned angered and bitterly blaming look towards a bit himself too shocked Wilder, who's impatience almost got her killed.

Suddenly, both of them turned to Ben after hearing the sound of klick of the pistol coming from his direction.

They all saw Ben, raising the loaded pistol to the level of his head and pressed its barrel to the right side of his head, ready to shoot himself as he had earlier threatened to do so to pirates earlier in his lair if something bad and lethal happens to Judy.

"Remember our deal, Wilder? You need two of us alive, both of us, me and Ben, to find the treasure. If I die, Ben dies too and then all of you will be trapped for the rest of your pathetic lives in this labyrinth."

By Judy's nod, Ben slowly removed the pistol's barrel from his head as Wilder turned back to Judy.

"So for the last time, you dumb fox. Some PATIENCE IF YOU DUMB BILGE RATS PLEASE! How difficult it is for you dumb bilge rats to be patient even though we are so close to the treasure?!" Judy exclaimed in anger and her cry echoed throughout the cave.

This question was followed by the brief silent between of Judy, Ben and Flint and Wilder and his pirates.

Eventually, Wilder reluctantly agreed to have some patience with the nod and grabbed again from the noose on Judy's neck.

"We need you two alive for now… and only to lead us to the treasure… then I decide what to do with you two after we've found it." Wilder said coldly.

Judy answered to this with the offended snuffle.

"Now, keep moving!" Wilder loudly ordered and pushed Judy forward to get her to move.

Wilder then ordered his men to walk on the edges of the tunnel to the end, just in case of similar booby traps activating hidden floor buttons as they continued their move towards the doorway in the other end of the tunnel.

* * *

Meanwhile...

In the outside of the volcano, near of the labyrinth's doorway and the stone map, the rhino and the crocodile pirates were starting to grow tired and impatient of waiting for the others as they were inside of the volcano searching for the treasure, which is presumably within the volcano and in the other end of the labyrinth.

"What's taking from them so long?" The crocodile pirate asked impatiently.

The rhino patiently pointed the stone map with his finger as the answer.

"As you see, it's not easy to walk through of the labyrinth full of dozens of crossing tunnels without being lost in there… especially in middle of the trapped tunnels. It takes some time to even get to the treasure and bring it out of there. That's what's taking from them so long." Rhino said.

However, this didn't satisfy the crocodile pirate and he grew more impatient.

"This is both stupid and boring. Are we going to wait for the rest of our lives before they return with the treasure from the labyrinth, if the treasure is even out there." The crocodile asked sarcastically.

"We had been on the move for two days, and captain has not allowed us to eat even a single crumb of the food or the single drop of water. I have a water tongue when I even think that sweet and seemingly juicy bunny. Should have ate her a long time ago before he even formed that stupid deal with Wilder back in the cave." The crocodile pirate complained.

"I'm hungry too, but what can you do to it. Wilder didn't allow us to bring any food with us, maybe because he believed that finding the treasure won't take this long. All the food was left to the boats, so don't even dare to complain it. So be patient. All we can do right now is just wait." Rhino said.

The crocodile then immediately and impatiently jumped on his feet.

"I'm already losing my patience of this useless waiting and I am more than just hungry! Why the heck Flint ever hid his massive treasure within of this… this… this his little game instead of burying it to the sand like all the pirates usually does with their treasures?!" The crocodile exclaimed impatiently, frustrated and angrily.

"What would I give for a piece of bread? My guns? My freedom? My own part of the treasure? Even my loyalty to Wilder?" The crocodile pirate listed.

Suddenly, the tiny sack full of bread landed to the crocodile pirate's feet out of nowhere, completely unexpectedly like someone had just answered to the crocodile pirate's wish.

The rhino and crocodile, who were caught off guard by the bread sack's sudden appearance next to their feet, before they then turned to the direction from where the sack had flied to them and they saw the familiar fox pirate behind of them.

No one else than… ISRAEL GREY himself. Bruised, but very much alive.

The evil fox pirate had somehow managed to survive from the fall from the main mast after his brutal fight with Judy, when she, Flint and Ben had sneaked to Zoopaniola to remove the gun powder to avoid Wilder from using the ship's cannons against them and to have the original map back.

"Israel Grey? YOU'RE ALIVE!" Both the rhino and the crocodile pirates said with unison.

They both had assumed that Israel Grey had been killed by Judy when the bunny was on her mission in Zoopaniola to remove powder and reclaim the map. Both of them were quite impressed of the bunny's off-screen seen but heard abilities to defeat the fox, though usually it is the fox who's, as the predator and natural enemy of the bunnies, supposed to be the victorious, when they heard it back in the cave, but now they were more shocked and confused, after finding out that Grey was still alive.

Grey also had, much to the pirates surprise and disgust, the governor Leodore and the remaining of his soldiers with him.

Both the rhino and the crocodile pirate weren't pleased to see the scary-cat Governor.

"You and your soldier scum were supposed to get out of here, baby-cat!" The crocodile yelled to the governor, with scorn towards his cowardice back then when he and rest of his fellow crew members had found him from the jungle, trying to sneak away in the darkness of Night.

Rhino and crocodile almost immediately took their pistols up and the soldiers lowered their own muskets aiming the pirates.

However, Israel Grey jumped between of two sides.

"Easy, easy, easy, boys. Easy. We're now on the same side." Grey explained, trying to calm down the rhino and the crocodile, who were immediately taken aback and very confused after hearing with their very own ears what Israel had just said.

"But those guys were part of the enemy crew!" The crocodile complained.

"Yes, we were. Formerly. But now, me and my men are teaming with you guys." Leodore stated with the smug grin on his face.

Both the crocodile and rhino pirates looked at each other in confusion… and the crocodile pirate started to chuckle and was nearly to burst out into the mocking laugh in front of the governor, until he quickly restrained himself, seeing Grey mood-killing cold glow in his eyes as the fox pirate took out the loaded pistol and aimed with it at him.

"We made the deal with each other. But there's two reasons why we either can and why we can't kill him right here, right now" Grey said to the pirates with the deep and angry growl.

Grey suddenly drew his sword out and aimed its sharp tip to beneath of Leodore's lower jaw and the middle spot of his throat with the threatening manners, causing the lion to gasp in surprise, shock and fear for his own life and to step back for two steps in fear and causing his soldiers to aim the fox pirate and the rest of the pirates with their muskets, causing the pirates to jump on their feet and drew their own weapons out aiming at the soldiers, only to be calmed down by Grey.

"The reason, why we can kill him, is that he's the governor and one of the closest persons to the king of Zoogland, and he could easily report us to the king's royal navy and send the warships to hunt us down for the piracy…if he gets out of this island. But the problem is, that he can't, because we still have the ship under of our command." Grey said and unexpectedly to Leodore, he lowered his sword.

"And reason two, why we can't kill him, is our deal. He won't report us to king's royal navy, only if we help each other to find and claim this treasure… or at least even a couple dozen chests from it… and at the same time to get rid of some useless scums outside of our deal or towards of whom we chare the common hatred…"

"Get rid from whom for example…?" Rhino demanded to know from the fox pirate, as he and the crocodile pirate listened Grey with the careful ear.

"For example from those otters and that accursed capin bunny…" Leodore said for Grey, growling deeply with anger and disgust out of the grudge he felt towards Judy.

"What about their own crew?" Crocodile asked, reminding them of Susan's survived crew members.

"We kept them as hostages but they're free to choose that either they are with us or do they want to more rather sink like the cannonballs to the dark abysses of the seas… like Mr. Bogo did back in the storm _BY MY PAW_." Grey answered with the sadistic grin on his face and with the sadistic pleasure of send more people to their watery graves.

The pirate duo then started to talk with each other about the deal between of Leodore and Grey for twenty minutes.

"Is captain Wilder part of that deal?" Rhino asked as he and the crocodile pirate broke out from considering the decision to join to Grey's and Leodore's deal or not, because he was kind of one of the few most loyal crew members to Wilder.

Grey noticed this very well.

"Well, you call him to your captain although he just left you two here, probably denying from you your rights for your share of the treasure by casting you two out of the treasure hunt. Is that the captain's respect towards his own crew? You call him as your captain after he relentlessly left you two out here to starve without anything to eat. How you two can show your loyalty and respect for the captain who only thinks of himself and just his own selfish gains. I know that I may have a big mouth and big words for the fox, coming from the someone who also happens to be in fact a fox himself. But didn't you guys saw the truth through of his lies back in the galley of the ship when we arrived to this island? He cares about that _cabin bunny_ and her safety and well-being more than what he cares of that treasure or his own crew members' safety. The real bloodthirsty captain would have immediately at first slit the bunny's throat and take the head and a good luck producing bunny-paws as the trophy than treat the bunny with the friendly and caring means. Is this the captain you will follow?" Grey said with the sly grin on his lips.

Crocodile pirate was more than just agree with Grey about that one.

"Yeah! He just denied from us our right to our share of the treasure, and I'm already starving here!" Crocodile complained in frustration and the growing disgust and hatred towards Wilder.

Grey then pointed with his clawed finger to the sack of bread and took out two bottles of rum.

"That's why I took something to eat and drink, only for you, fellas." Grey said and offered both the rum and bread to his fellow pirates.

From two of them, the crocodile grabbed the bread and the bottle of rum, and within couple seconds, the crocodile pirate ate his own piece of bread and drunk his bottle of rum to empty much fast than the rhino did.

"So, where are others from your miserable band of sea-rats?" Leodore demanded to know, disgusted by the crocodile's disgusting table manners, because the crocodile pirate ate his bread without closing his mouth while munching the bread and he yet let out the loud burp after drinking his bottle of rum to empty.

Rhino huffed in annoyance and pointed with his hand to the stone map on the wall.

"In the labyrinth hunting for the treasure." Rhino answered.

Both Grey and Leodore looked to the direction of the stone map of the labyrinth, with the stone buttons beneath of it, in the wall and the opened doorway into the volcano, and with the amazed looks on their faces, the fox pirate and the lion governor immediately rushed to the stone map to see it from closer.

While checking the area, Grey also spotted the old paper lying in the sand next and picked the paper up to look at it, discovering that the paper was Flint's map what they were searching for years before the voyage.

Grey also spotted the empty rotten chest in the bottom of the pit dug to the sand and quickly rushed to investigate it, just like the pirates had done when they exited from the jungle to this area…

…without finding any single coin in the chest or around of it.

"I don't get it! What is this?! We're standing on the X-sign of the map and there's no even a single coin of the treasure! Someone has taken the treasure front of our noses!" Grey yelled in the disappointment and anger, believing that this was all for nothing.

"And what that map about this labyrinth with these buttons, engravings and zooztec writings is supposed to mean?!"

The crocodile and the rhino pirate remained there where they were sitting, but they had at least turned to Grey's and Leodore's direction to eye their doings.

"We were wondering exactly that same problem, Grey! We left that stuff for that cabin bunny and his stinking yak friend to somehow figure out. But if you want to know a little more and more carefully about the map and its meanings, be my guest and go after them to the labyrinth and ask from them!" Crocodile exclaimed to the fox pirate.

"They also found out that the treasure is in fact buried inside of that volcano and they're right now searching of it inside of volcano, from another end of the labyrinth, which ends to the larger circled area on the map." Rhino explained.

Leodore was dumbfounded of that fact.

"That bunny brat figured this messy map and its mystery out by herself?!" But that's impossible! That brat has never been interested nor good in the school… especially with the lessons of zooztec writings and engravings such of these ones. She was always after her ridiculous dreams of sailing on the seas looking for the "cool" adventures and spends her time with her _SO_ annoying pranks." Leodore said, growling in annoyance of one of those memories when Judy once, "accidentally" as she always says in self-defense, burned his mane off in the beach festivals back in the home island's beaches and it had took from him the lifetime, as he said so, to have his mane grown back.

"I was the master in my own school time." Leodore said with the tone of voice full of arrogant pride.

"Is that so? Well, can then the governor to tell us what these engravings and writings means anyway?" Grey asked sarcastically and referred him to explain.

Leodore took the look to writings in zooztecs language in the wall around of the stone map and he also took the look to the buttons and engravings in them, but Leodore just looked at them with the confused and nervous expression on his face. It took the ten minutes before Leodore turned to Grey with nervous smile on his face.

"Well, be honest, I… kind of… uh, ha-ha-ha-haa… I may, kind of… uh… skipped all the classes of ancient mythology in the school… because they were… kind of… boring stuff, and I… ha-ha-haa I… uh… I never though, that I'll… uh… one day actually cross with the… uh… with the situation kind of this. Never… ever… in my… life… with my… riches and… well-producing businesses... port taxes... my "discoveries" and the taxes anyway" Leodore said, laughing nervously.

Israel Grey growled in annoyance and frustration for Leodore's poor answer and was about to take his pistol out and shoot the Governor, ignoring their deal and the lion's cowardly pleads for mercy as he noticed this, until Grey's eyes spotted something in the map.

"Wait for minute, is there another way in and out of the volcano?" Grey said and jumped one of the buttons to check it out.

Grey found from the map the road, which was purposely carved to resemble the map's waving side border thus leaving it almost invisibly. The road led from their current location near of the entrance of this messy labyrinth to the volcano's another side, from where Grey spotted another secret path, which led straight into the central cave inside of the Labyrinth. The path was engraved to the map by the same way like the road leading to another entrance to the volcano, that it was also almost unseen for the careless ones and thus left to be easily unnoticed.

"I don't see anything." Leodore said, trying unsuccessfully to spot that road by himself from the map like Grey did.

Grey did not wasted his time to explain to the dumb lion but turned to the very first button, which had bars-looking engravings.

The button was clearly seen to be much larger than the other buttons, because it had two engravings of the bars on top of each other. One was closed and one was half-closed, and its location seemed to be placed beneath of this another entrance of the straight way to the central cave as well as this main entrance to the messy labyrinth.

Placing this pieces together, Grey figured out the button's meanings.

"So, if that another tunnel's entrance is closed by these bars, then pushing this button will close this entrance with the bars and open the bars on that another tunnel's entrance." Grey said to himself, scratching his chin with his claws.

"The treasure might be indeed inside of that volcano… that's why Wilder, that cabin bunny and the others went to in. And I assume that they had left this spot from this map completely untouched, as the creators of this network of messy tunnels and this map had meant. They also did good… for us… to not to touch this very first button. If they had, there would not be another way to take them out by surprise." Grey said with the cruel grin.

"Doesn't it bother the governor if we take some walk to another side of the volcano?" Grey asked with the smug grin, turning to Governor.

The governor huffed in frustration, but eventually, albeit reluctantly, shook his head.

"I'm able to tolerate anything… to get that treasure to my fingers." Leodore said the voice full of arrogant pride… again.

Grey growled deeply in frustration to Leodore's spoiled brat-like arrogant and overly- civilized behavior, because the Governor had their whole walking trip through of the jungle from the island's beach until the foot of the volcano complained about the conditions of the jungle like the little brat. He was able to hear in his mind Leodore's endless maunderings _"I hate the jungle! Too much insects buzzing in my ears! Branches ripping my clothes to shreds, messing my mane and lianas wrapping around of me like the snakes! The toads jumping with their slimy limbs onto my outfit, messing it with their slime!"_ and his worst maundering of all _"Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?"_

"Alright then." Grey said and turned to the pirate duo. "You two, get back to the boats and get the hostages back to the ship with Vincent and Mbaya!" Grey yelled to the pirates.

From the two, the crocodile, was more than just sick of this waiting, rushed already ahead of the group and was then followed by the rhino pirate, who was a bit reluctant to obey Grey because of his loyalty lying to Wilder.

The rhino pirate quickly and briefly looked over his shoulder at Grey, the Governor and his soldiers, disgusted that Israel Grey had teamed up with that cowardly governor to claim the treasure and he felt himself more willing to wait his captain more than to retreat back to the boats by the order of Israel Grey, who had known to hold grudge against Wilder because of the disagreements and fierce arguments between of these two foxes, before he eventually departed and rushed after the crocodile pirate.

"Be ready to the walk, Governor." Grey said and pushed the very first button inside of the wall.

* * *

Meanwhile...

Back in the messy tunnels of the labyrinth, where Judy, Ben, Wilder and the rest of the pirates had reached to another large cave, which was like the ancient zooztec-build windowless hall.

There was a six new doorways on the another side of the hall, one of which was open while the others were closed.

There was also huge god-like lion resembling statue bowed down on one of the statue's knees next to the entrance to this room and the next of it was standing the high stone pillar.

Judy had immediately ordered the whole group to stand down and stay away from the hall's floor, which seemed like the chessboard and maybe for the reason.

Besides, there was also the button under of this cave in the stone map with the engravings of the doorways to the messy tunnels, and the beneath of the doorways was the chessboard-like engraving, which was identical similiar to this one in this hall, but nothing else was carved to the button... meaning that there was possibly yet another booby trap for the careless ones.

"Now what?" Wilder asked impatiently.

"Patience, Wilder! Patience. I try to think how…"

Suddenly, there was another shaking, which unexpectedly to the whole group shook the whole hall, dropping the rocks from the ceiling of the hall and throwing everyone to the ground.

It almost threw Ben too near to the floor of the Hall!

Ben tried to keep his balance by putting his leg to the square in the floor.

But suddenly, the square, to which Ben just stepped to keep his balance, revealed to be a trap door, when it suddenly disappeared from the rest of the floor, revealing the dark cave under of the floor.

Ben let out the girlish cry of surprise and horror as he was about to fall to the cave, until Judy and Captain Flint reacted quickly and both of them quickly grabbed the yak from his horns before Ben managed to fall through the floor to the cave.

Judy's and Flint's quick reaction and act saved Ben nick in time from falling to the darkness under of the floor... and also being hanged by the rope around of his neck as Wilder held tightly from the loose end of the rope.

Ben let out the relieved sight after being saved.

"Huh! That was close." Ben stated.

Out of curiosity, Judy looked down to the hole into the cave, and gasped in horror after what he saw down there.

"Oh sweet cheese and crackers!" Judy exclaimed loudly, as she saw the sea of the pikes in the bottom of the hallow cave under of the hall's every trap door. There was also the lots of different animals skeletons impaled by the pikes.

Ben saw them as well.

"Wow! Old Ben guesses that it was a bit too close!" Ben said in shock, as with the help of Flint and Judy, Been managed to climb out of the hole and get back on his feet to the edge where they were all standing.

"You alright?" Judy asked worriedly, but sighed as out of relief after Ben answered to her with positive nod that he was okay, despite such of shocking experience, what he didn't remember.

Then, Wilder caught Judy's attention.

"Alright, Carrots, because of you and your yak friend, we've reached to this far. And now. we have another booby trap between of us and the treasure and my boys are starting slowly to get tired of this waiting... and murderously impatient. So, can you friendly tell us, how on earth we're supposed to get through of this the Mother of all Booby Traps?" Wilder asked.

Judy was asking that the very same question from herself. There was not any clues carved in the walls - and there was nothing told about this booby trap in the stone map in outside of the labyrinth - and there was no way they would just jump from the door to door to another side of the hall and the climbing through of the walls was impossible.

Ben then took the look to the lion's statue.

"Wait for minute… is that… _Tonatiuh_ himself?" Ben asked from himself.

Judy then turned to Ben, surprised of what the yak had just said.

"Excuse me, who?" Judy asked in confusion and surprise.

" _Tonatiuh_ … the zooztec god of sun. That guy was always demanding the sacrifices in exchange for the light to the world or else he refuses to walk in the sky in the form of the golden shiny ball… uh... eh... uh... what it was called now… uh... uh... oh, yes. SUN! In the form of the sun in middle of the sky, causing the entire world to turn into the darkness." Ben explained.

"How do you know this with your poor memory?" Judy asked out of curiosity.

"Old Ben always begged him to walk in the sky and show for the poor Old Ben his warm lights, when there was the heavy rainfall lasting for days, leaving no dry place for Old Ben to have shelter from the rain and nothing to burn and warm Old Ben up. Old Ben begged the light from him by sacrificing for him the fruits… quite rotten ones. Old Ben probably didn't pleased him with the such of gift and as punishment he sent a supreme god of the rains and thunders, _Tlaloc_ , to sink the island underwater and whip Old Ben with the devastating lights from the dark sky."

Judy rolled her eyes in annoyance at Ben's beliefs to the zooztec gods, but she was suddenly inspired by Ben's words _"Tonatiuh was always demanding the sacrifices or he refuses to walk in the air in the form of the sun."_

Judy then started to head towards the pillar behind of the stone of _Tonatiuh's statue_.

"Did you got something, rabbit?!" Finnick asked impatiently.

"You better have something in your mind!" Redfur shouted too to Judy.

"Hurry up, rabbit! Keep moving!" Badger pirate shouted.

"What's taking so long?!" Raccoon pirates exlaimed in unison and in impatience.

"Do something and do it fast, you smelly hair ball!" Wild boar snorted.

"Don't make us to throw you to among of those trap doors, you useless and flopsy flatfoot!" Duge insulted.

judy had throughout the voyage ignored the pirates insults and threats because she had get used to them back in home when she was still "the walking disaster" as most of the insults and threats came from Leodore himself... but now, after having changed from that former silent and rebellious rabbit the young woman throughout the voyage... maybe thanks for Wilder's teachings and all her experiences during of Wilder's mutiny... her inner wall had started to get weaker and the insults and threats - including Wilder's mentally offending words back in the ship's galley - have sown the seed of rage within her since when she heard about the mutiny the first time and it had been slowly sprouting after every insult and every threat since then.

Judy had of course tried to keep her cool, but the last insults were too much for her mental resilience and she finally snapped.

"How many times do I have to say this to you, bilge rats?! HAVE! SOME! PATIENCE, YOU LAZY AND MORE USELESS BILGE RATS, SWEET CHEESE AND CRACKERS! You pirates are so ungrateful, impossible and unbearable that I'm so tempted to throw one of you among of those trap doors!" Judy shouted back to the pirates as loud as she could for the bunny, that her highly angered and frustrated cry echoed in the cave's air space, causing the startled pirates to step back.

She was indeed slowly getting sick of these dumb impatient pirates shouts, complaints, threats and insults.

None of them had ever used to see to the high level angered bunny before, unlike they had used to see the bunnies shaking in fear. But they knew that any animal in the such of level of anger and frustration can bite back, no matter with species.

In fact, the every pirate, and especially Wilder, was quite impressed of seeing the one very angered bunny in front of their eyes.

Then Judy turned to Ben.

"Ben, can you…?" Judy asked.

"Ben stepped next to the foot of the pillar and helped Judy to climb onto his head again. Judy then jumped up with all the physical strenght of the bunny she got in her feets and successfully grabbed from the edge of the top of the pillar and pulled herself up on the edge of the pillar to see what there was.

The top of the pilar was like something gigantic stone cup which was filled by the black oil.

"What is in there?" Wilder yelled at Judy.

"Oil only, nothing more. Why did you even ask?" Judy said back with sarcastic tone.

Wilder only shrugged and kept watching Judy's doing with Ben, as well as did Flint and the rest of the pirates.

Judy then watched to the statue of _Tonatiuh_ and then the oil, then she looked at back to _Tonatiuh_ and then back to oil, then again to _Tonatiuh_ and then the oil. _Tonatiuh_ and then the oil, _Tonatiuh_ and then the oil.

Judy started to silently think in her mind that what will happen if she lights the pilar's cup's oil into fire. It will at least light the whole hall and send the large shadow over the floor from the statue of _Tonatiuh_. Judy wasn't sure that how that will actually help them to get to the another side and to the open doorway over the trap doors without stepping on any of the insidious trap doors.

The risk was great and the results meaning probably the certain death, but at least she had to try.

Judy referred Flint to come to her.

It wasn't hard for the monkey to climb the pillar to get to her, using of course briefly Ben as the living foothold.

Ben, Wilder and the rest of the pirates followed with their eyes Judys' and Flint's doings out of the curiosity from aside, as Judy behaved like she was explaining something and requesting something from the monkey. The monkey was smart enough to understand Judy's request for something which sounded like a stick and something burning.

Flint immediately jumped to search the stick and something to burn. And because the pirates were unwilling to hand over their torches, Flint instead picked from the ground the broken pikestaff and picked some hair form Ben's mane, much to yak's annoyance and brought them to Judy on the top of the pilar.

"Sorry, Ben." Judy apologized with the innocent smile on her lips and trying her best to hold back her hardly controlled giggling of seeing Flint picking some hair off from Ben's mane... and apologizing also the head aches Flint caused for him.

From pikestaff and Ben's hair, Judy created a home-made torch and then turned her eyes to _Tonatiuh_ 's statue.

"So, you don't want to walk in the sky in the form of the bright sun without the sacrifices handed to you, Mr. _Tonatiuh_?" Judy asked, half-sarcastic tone from the statue. "Then we're gonna make our own sunlight."

Judy took the prepared position in the edge of the stone cub… helding the home-made torch's flaming head over the oil.

Judy knew that igniting the oil in the fire will be followed by the massive flash and she could be consumed or burned by it as well. So, once she had dropped the torch into the oil, she had to jump off the pilar before the flames of the torch managed to touch the oil.

A bit hesitating, but also tired of the pirates annoying impatience, she waited for roughly over five awkward minutes.

she waited...

...she waited...

...she waited...

...she waited...

...waited...

...waited...

…until she eventually dropped the torch into the oil, and quickly jumped off the edge of the pilar's cup.

Once the torch sunk to the oil and its flaming head touched the oil's surface, a huge flames bursted out from the cub and almost reaching to the hall's ceiling and sone of the side flames, which spreaded outside of the cup's edge, almost burnt Judy's ears.

Judy luckily avoided her ears to be burned and she landed to bellow waiting Ben's arms.

The huge flame lighted the whole hall and as Judy surmised, the light threw the huge shadow from _Tonatiuh_ 's statue on the floor, reaching to the opened doorways.

After the pirates witnessed Ben almost falling through of the floor on one of the squares to the cave under of the square floor full of the pikes, they immediately started to hesitate, they even refused to take even on step on one of the floor's squares.

And because of this, Judy had to take the situation into her own paws. knowing that the oil will not burn long, so they had to be in another side of the hall before the fire in the oil cub goes out and the light fades.

Judy at first decided to test one step inside of the statue's shadow, but she quickly jumped off when that square of the floor, on which she stepped, revealed to be the trap door to the cave full of pikes under of the floor.

The time was probably already fading, so Judy decided next to test the squares on the statue's shadow's edge on its light side.

Judy stepped on the square carefully and after the step and moving her own weight over her leg on that square, she quickly closed her eyes by her instincts, expecting this square to be the trap door too and her weight on her leg on it causing it to open and dropping her to the cave below and into the pikes.

Judy's ears jumped up due to her high levelled adrenaline and everyone gasped in the deep tension after Judy's step.

However...

Nothing did happen.

Judy carefully opened her eyes and noticed that the square beneath of her feet didn't open.

Knowing the risks, but knowing also that the fire on the oil had short lifetime, Judy took the risks and took two steps more on two other squares following the edge of the shadow from the side of the light.

Nothing happened after these steps.

Judy then realized that all what they needed to do is to follow the statue's shadow's edge on it's light side and step only to those squares the shadow touched.

"Okay, follow me! And remember, follow the statue's shadow's edge from its light side and only through of those squares the shadow touches! And keep moving, because I don't know how long that oil will burn in the cup." Judy yelled to others.

Still hesitating, the pirates, including Flint, Ben and Wilder, followed one by one the bunny to the light-side's squares, stepping only on those squares the shadow touched and carefully jumping over of those squares between of the ones touched by the shadow... until they were all safely in the hall's other side's edge, where the opened doorway was.

After surviving through of that booby trap, Judy, Flint, Ben, Flint and the pirates entered through of the opened doorway to the tunnel and continued forward along the tunnel, which was very long tunnel and it has few some curved bends and the small crossroads to the right and left.

Some of the pirates were during of the walk arguing with each others to which direction they're supposed to go, but Judy sternly demanded that they keep walking straight ahead in every crossroad they meet on their walk.

Judy also said that they're in the central cave when they reaches to the end of the tunnel, where she assumed to be open stone door to the treasure.

Behind of her, the small grin visited on Wilder's lips, due to him being quite impressed of Judy's newfound leadership skills.

* * *

Later...

It took almost two hours to walk through of the labyrinth-like tunnel and crossroads, ending at least twice to the dead ends.

And because of this, the pirates were starting to once again grew more impatient, but also both tired and hungry, having not eaten anything since they left from their landing place near of the ruined settlement.

And due to this, Wilder was not able to calm them down anymore.

And when they finally reached to the end of the tunnel, they found out that it was the dead end without any other way to keep moving forward, much to Judy's and Ben's surprise, horror and confusion and the pirates' disappointment and growing anger.

Wilder then turned to Judy.

"What is this, Carrots! This was supposed to be the doorway to the central cave, not the dead end!" Wilder questioned in anger from Judy.

Judy was as confused about their stituation. This tunnel was supposed to be the straight way to the central cave after the last booby-trap. Judy had checked their safe way through of the labyrinth twice or three times before entering to the labyrinth. She was sure that this was the right tunnel as it led to the doorway to the central cave. Then what went wrong? Why the tunnel led them to the mere dead end instead of the central cave? And much worse, what from this adversity can be followed?

Judy turned to Wilder the confused and questioning look on her face, but not showing her fear to the fox pirate unlike Ben, who backed down when the pirates angry glares were aimed to him and Judy.

"I... I don't get it, how this ended like this, Wilder. I checked this three times over before I was sure this tunnel was the right tunnel to the central cave. And I though that there was the door me and Ben opened outside of the entire labyrinth. There must be the some kind of secret door to in or something, that's all what I know." Judy explained in the self-defense.

However, the fox pirate wasn't satisfied of this explonation.

"So said you, and I say this, that are you really goning to lead us to the treasure or kill all of us here by starvation, Carrots?!" Wilder asked, until he suddenly pulled his pistol out and pressed its barrel against of Judy's forehead, demanding the answers.

But even under of this death threat, Judy didn't show any sight of fear to the fox pirate nor his men. She only glared at his savagely angered eyes with her own full of courage and hatred towards the fox pirate.

The pirates followed their captain's example and also pulled their swords out and aimed them to Ben's throat, chest and legs, cornering him to very tight space.

One of then grabbed Flint from his tail, preventing the monkey from interfering to this.

"Killing us doesn't help anything, Wilder." Judy said with the deep voice full of venom to Wilder.

To her surprise, Wilder nodded but still kept his pistol pressed against Judy's forehead with the threatening and demanding means.

"Tne you better have some explanation for this, Carrots." Wilder demanded.

Judy rolled her eyes and loudly snorted in frustration.

"I already told you, that I have not any clue how this ended up like this!" Judy yelled in frustration at Wilder.

Then Judy, completely unexpectedly, started to slowly step backwards as Wilder suddenly started slowly but menacingly approached her the step by step and forced her to back off by pressing his pistol's barrel more harder and painfully against her forehead. Wilder glared at the bunny with the unprecedentedly savage and murderous glow in the fox pirate's widened eyes aimed at Judy's own and letting out the deep and bloodthirsty growls, which grow louder that his white canine fangs were bared out of his drooling mouth.

Judy was a bit startled of this glare in the fox pirate's eyes.

"Wilder? What are you..." Judy tried, but her words seemed to fall the deaf ears of the fox pirate.

Wilder's crew seemed to enjoy of Judy's really bad situation.

"THAT DAMNED BUNNY TRICKED US ALL!" Hyena pirate yelled in anger.

"SHRED HER HEATS TO SHREDS, CAPTAIN!" Cape dog pirate yelled after the hyena.

"I'M GONNA RIP HER APART LIMB BY LIMB!" Redfur roared.

"SLIT HER THROAT, CAPTAIN!" The raccoons encouraged.

"FEED HER THE CATTLE'S DUNG THAT SHE CHOCKES TO IT!" Wild boar pirate raged.

"SKIN HER ALIVE!" The raccoon pirates encouraged their fellas.

"I'M GONNA BITE HER FACE OFF!" Finnick growled

"GIVE HIM TO ME, SO THAT THE CAPTAIN WILL HAVE A GOOD LUCK PRODUCING RABBIT'S FEET!" Duke yelled, helding his knives in his paws.

Suddenly, the cheetah pirate stepped forward, rudely pushing her captain out of her way and turned to Judy.

"YOU SNEAKY, WEAKLING BUNNY!" Cheetah growled and hardly kicked Judy to her stomach, sending her to fly forwards the dead end's wall that Judy roughly flied against the wall, causing her to let out the yelp is pain.

But suddenly, when Judy flied against the wall, the wall suddenly gave up and opened like the door much to the pirates surprise, unexpectedly releasing the hot air and the bright red glow upon of them, blinding their to the labyrinth's darkness.

As the door opened, Judy flew for a short distance away from the door and landed roughly to the other side of the door.

Judy was about to jump back on her feet and say the scolding words to these buccaneers or defend herself with the physical violence, despite her still sore arm, until she noticed the surprised expression on everyone's face as they looked over her.

A bit confused, Judy found herself in a new but much bigger cave filled with the odd red glow, before she slowly turned around to see that what they were looking for and gasped in surprise and astonishment of what they saw.

Wilder and the pirates then entered to the cave, Ben and Flint in Judy's side, and walked straight ahead.

Entering in the cave ahead of the group, Wilder almost stumbled on something, and barely managed to keep his balance. Wilder turned around and spotted the rope front of the stone door. Annoyed and embarassed of falling a victim to such of childish trap, Wilder cut it in half before he continued to walk with the rest of the group.

But what Wilder didn't know (nor cared) that he could have just unknowingly to activate something by either accidentally stumbling to or by intentionally cutting off this childish trap…

The air in the cave was quite sweaty hot and some rocks in the cave's walls and roof were glowing the red glow. There was also the somekind of deep humming noise like which resembled the humming noise of the waterfalls.

As they walked deeper, they found out the source of the hot air, this glow and the humming sound after they reached to the edge of the cliff where they were standing.

There was the huge chasm beneath of the cliff, where was flowing the massive, hot and red-glowing lava river, which flowed from the lava fall, which bursted with the huge power out of the large hole in the massive wall, which would explain hot air, red glow, and deep humming sound

They also noticed that there was a huge and thick pillar standing in middle of the lava river, which was attached to the cliff on where they were standing with the wide stone bridge shaped by the nature.

The group started to walk along the stone bridge, heading towards the edge of the pilar's peak.

And once they reached to there, they found out that the peak of the pilar resembled by its form some kind of the gigantic stone-cup, which was filled by something… something honey-colored and glowing thing.

Judy, Ben, Wilder and all the pirates gasped in the shock and astonishment after they reached to the cup's edge and looked inside of it to see that what was in the cup.

Judy's and Wilder's ears dropped against the backs of their heads and their mouths fell slightly open in shock and awe as they looked inside of the cup.

From all of them, only Ben watched all of this unamazement.

Then all the pirates, except Wilder, got the wide grins on their faces.

Then without the warning, the pirates all started cheering loudly and surged forward towards the honey-colored sea in the stone cup.

"It… it… it is…" Judy whispered in wonder.

"THE LOOT OF THE SEVEN SEAS." Wilder loudly whispered.

They then realized that they have done it.

The purpose of this entire voyage is completed.

They've found the famous Captain's Flint long-lost treasure, which has been undiscovered from the rest of the other world and been hidden in this volcano for decades since Flint's confirmed death.

Judy could not believe her own eyes. She had heard the countless stories about the hidden pirate treasure but she never could have imagined anything like this.

The stone cup was full of gold. Infinite and endlessly gold in forms of hundreds of thousands or even millions of gold coins along with the different-sized of gold nuggets and tons of golden bars mostly in the dozens huge piles everywhere and in the hundreds of overly filled, different-looking and -sized treasure chests.

There was also hundreds of zooztec-made golden animal statues: such of jaguars, crocodiles, snakes, lizards, deers, boars, rabbits, turtles, parrots, monkeys, llamas, tapirs, ocelots and so on, either in their anthropomorphic or primitive animal forms.

There was also among the treasure hundreds of thousands different jewels, such of head- or fist-sized blood-red rubies, blue diamonds, green emeralds and yellow topazes and many other jewels.

There was also a large selection of zooztec-made variety of jeweled jewelry: such of thousands rings, bracelets, necklaces, brooches, ceremonia crowns, golden masks and armor-like golden ceremony outfits resembling the god-like animals.

The pirates had eagerly and out of joy laughing and cheering separated around of the piles of treasure.

They started to either dance on the treasure, to explore the contains of the treasure chests, gather some gold and jewels to their hats and pockets or just throw coins and jewels into the air and let them to fall on them like the rain.

"We are going to need a bigger boat!" Duke yelled eagerly dancing on the treasure.

"What are then we waiting for! Let's just get this gold out of here!"

* * *

 **Gotta end the chapter right here.**

 **I hope that you enjoyed the chapter.**

 **Be patient, because the** **sixteenth** **chapter is on its way and is out soon.**

 **See ya.**


	16. Chapter 16: Captain Flint's Backstory

**HELLO AGAIN TO ALL CURRENT AND UPCOMING READERS, FOLLOWERS, AND FANS!**

 **It's time to continue from where we were left on my fanction TREASURE TROPOLIS**

 **Because sixteenth chapter is now out.**

 **Enjoy of reading.  
**

* * *

Amazed by the sight of such of number of gold, Wilder started to walk slowly towards of the treasure, looking at the sea and the piles of gold like he was under of somekind of trance... completely forgetting Judy, Flint and Ben behind.

Ben looked all around of him, rubbing his messy hair with his finger.

"This is all seeming... very familiar. There was also something... but Old Ben can't remember what." Ben said to himself while looking at all these treasures and other riches ill-gotten by Captain Flint.

Ben's words snapped Judy out of her own trance-like state of amazement as he turned to Ben.

Then Judy's eyes cought something else interesting.

While looking at the cave's walls, Judy spotted that in the another side of the treasure-filled stone cub was another cliff, which was attached to the stone cup with the another stone bridge.

There also seemed to be a pathway, carved from the living stone of the upwards along the wall towering cliff, whuch was also perfectly hidden behind of the untouched stone ridge full of to the living stone attached boulders and the stone pilars shaped by the nature.

Judy followed the hidden pathway upwards with her eyes, until she spotted something hanging on the open cliff to where the pathway seemingly ended.

There was some kind of shipwreck hanging on the cliff... with its decks filled with the treasures.

Ben made a quick glance to Wilder to make sure that the fox pirate had completely forgot them.

And when it seemed sure that Wilder would not pay attention to them for a while, Judy removed the noose from her neck and knocked Ben to his hide and referred him and Flint to follow her.

"Ben, come on. There's a hidden pathway in the another side of the cup and the shipwreck on the cliff. What ever it is, we better to check it out. And if that path leads out of here, that's our chance to escape before the pirates even notices we're gone... But after all this, we're not leaving here empty-handed." Judy said and started to run on the edge of the stone cup to another side of the cup, Flint and Ben right behind of her.

* * *

Meanwhile...

Wilder had walked right in the middle of the stone cub and its treasure.

Wilder felt the deep relief within himself, that after the years of searching of all of this, his lifetime dream had finally come true.

Such of relief was eventually too much to his legs, that Wilder eventually fell on his knees over the treasure and looked at it with relieved expression on his face.

"Ah! I can't believe that... After a life time of searching all of this..." Wilder said to himself as he spread his paws and poured the handful of gold coins and jewels on his paws and lifted them up towards his own face.

"And I was nearly losing my hope... until at long last..." Wilder whispered, as he hold the glowing gold and jewels under of his faces and eventually created the greedy grin on his lips.

"...I VAN EVEN TOUCH IT!"

* * *

Meanwhile, undetected by the pirates...

Judy, Flint and Ben had reached to the another side of the cup and to the opposite cliff of the cave, and now they were climbing on the hidden stone stairs to the cliff from where Judy spotted the shipwreck, far above of the cave.

When the trio finally reached to there, Judy discovered that the shipwreck was an old pirate ship with the shredded blood-red sails on its masts and the ragged black flag floating in the masthead. Also half of the ship was gone and all what was remaining of the ship, was covered by the piles of treasures and over-flooding treasure chests.

"Ship in the volcano's cave? How in earth it has got here?" Judy asked from herself.

Out of the curiosity, Judy decided to visit inside of the shipwreck from the hole on its side and Ben followed her in with Flint, still thinking something in his mind.

"Does Juicy know that what's strange? Old Ben can't tell you how frustrating this is, Juicy... 'cause there's at the moment something which is nagging at the back of Old Ben's mind." Ben said while he was thinking something.

However, Judy didn't paid any attention to it, but instead, after stepping inside of the ship, she rushed to one of the overly filled treasure chest and started to pick up from the chest some beautiful jewelry, such like the golden rings, bracelets and necklaces... even bunny-sized crown with the various colored jewels, and started to fit them on herself, finally adorning herself in the beautiful looking golden mirror.

Suddenly, right immediately when Ben stepped inside the shipwreck, he turned his head to his right side to look around of the inside of the ship... and then he screamed in horror like he had just saw the ghost or something, rapidly backing down until he was tripped to his own legs and fell on his back over the treasure piles inside of the ship.

Ben's sudden scream snapped Judy out of her thoughts wit hthe jewelry and turned to Ben, who was shaking in shock as he pointed with his finger at the corner of the ship's room.

Judy then turned to there where Ben pointed with his finger and lighted the corner of the room with the torch she still had with her... until Judy's eyes widened in out of nowhere into her heart like the cold knife striking horror after she found out that what Ben did saw.

The skeletal figure sitting motionless on the golden jeweled throne in middle of the treasures.

Judy gasped in shock at the sight before her nose and in half-panic backed off, getting far away from the disgusting sight in middle of these riches.

"Is that… Captain Flint?" Judy breathed in shock and amazement.

"Yeah! It's him! IN THE FLESH!" Ben exclaimed.

The skeletal figure sitting in the golden chair was the skeleton of very tall and bulky rabbit, wearing still the rotten and shredded black pirate jacket of the pirate captain and wearing the rotten pirate captain's hat upon his skull.

"Well, s-sort of. Except for skin, organs... or anything that-that resembles flesh - that's not there." Ben said, staying far away from the skeleton.

But Judy, however, took the few steps to close of the remains of the famous pirate from all those stories she had heard as a kid.

Though the remains of Flint creeped her out and caused her heart to beat faster and harder our of hardly hidden horror, Judy took a few steps more towards the remains of Flint to examine his skeleton.

Judy spotted the long scar in Flint's skull which crossed his left eye cavity, meaning that Flint had once got the very terrible wound in the past compat and probably lost his eye because of it.

Judy also spotted that Flint's claws were abnormally long and pointed like the predators claws, for the bunny, and that Flint was probably able to cause with them serious wounds to his enemies, no mater how big they were compared to Flint's size. Also, Flint's teeth were shaped to sharp and pointed like the predators fangs.

And finally, Flint's skeleton's vicious and creepy grin on his skull caused chills to Judy and she hurriedly backed away from the skeleton.

"How can one bunny be so, CREEPY, even as skeleton?! I think I'm gonna need my stuffed animals again when I next time go in the bed to sleep." Judy said, hoping that she will not get the nightmares about the skeleton.

And meanwhile, Ben still kept thinking something, which after all had helped him to remove the thoughts about the skeleton our of his mind.

"And yet it's so odd. you know? Old Ben remembers that there was... something, something very horrible what Flint didn't want anyone else to know, but... Old Ben just can't remember what it was." Ben muttered to himself behind of her.

As Judy took the reluctant look back at Flint's skeleton - which was like viciously grinning at her, giving to her more chills - Judy spotted something in Flint's bony fingers in his skeleton's arms.

It was the the large book which was closed.

Out of curiosity, Judy grabbed to the book with both of her paws and pulled it off from Flint's skeletal fingers, breaking them in the process and the pieces of Flint's skeletal fingers spread around of the floor like the game dices.

"Oh, a mind is a terrible thing to lose! You don't know how it feels, Juicy, because you did not need to spend decades alone on a desert island like Old Ben did!" Ben exclaimed and started to briefly sob.

"Why does Old Ben even bother of calling himself as _the one who has the memory of the elephant_ as Old Ben forgets almost immediately everything happened a quarter ago and even his own name within seconds?!" Ben cried.

Judy, however, did not turn to Ben. She was more curious about the book she found from Flint's skeleton and held it in her paws, wiping or blowing off some dust over the book.

When she opened it, she found out that most of its pages were either torn off from it, except for a few ones, where was still some writings.

"Ben! You better to take the look at this." Judy called and within seconds Ben, as he tried to hold back his own tears of self-pity, and Flint, who was trying his best to comfort the yak's feelings, rushed next to Judy to look at the old paper pages writings.

Judy also found out that the writings in the pages were wrote with ink and in zoonglish and its writer judging by the signature under the writings seemed to be… CAPTAIN FLINT HIMSEL!

Judy then started to read it

 _"You, the reader of this book. Who ever you are and who ever found my treasure, my ship's and my body's remains, this is my last message to the possible discoverer of my treasure. But at first. My name, my REAL name, not the name by which I am known in the legends and stories of me... is Nathaniel Hawkins"_

"HAWKINS?!" Judy exclaimed greatly surprised after reading the first line.

"Captain Flint's true last name was… Hawkins?!" Judy whispered to herself.

"Yeah, so what?" Ben asked while still trying to reach something from his mind instead of focusing to this.

Flint jumped on Judy's shoulder and the monkey took the curious look at the book.

Judy was at once alert in the monkey's presence, in case of the possibility if the crafty ape got the idea to scrimp the pages during of reading it.

Judy didn't answer to Ben's question but immediately continued to read the message out of curiosity about Nathaniel's true origins before becoming the legendary Captain Flint.  
 _ **  
**"Long time ago, before I started the piracy and became the most famous and fearsome pirate of all the Seven Seas, I was by beginning the honest but extremely poor fisherbunny. Failed in the life as a good husband and father to my own doe wife and my poor little starving children and I was everyday bullied by the merciless governor of my home island, Dawn Bellwether, due to my inability to pay my high taxes to her by money from my sold fishes with the poor pay in every market days."_

 _"One day my heart urged me to leave for seas, for adventure, for money and for freedom from the gray everyday life. So, I joined to the merchantman frigate which was leaving to its voyage for next two years on the seas."_

 _"Well, the life at seas did not start to me by sunny way, because I was ill-treated and underestimated by the bigger prey and predator crew members, because I was only bunny in the ship and I failed almost continually in every work on the ship the captain tasked me to."_

 _"Everything changed when our ship was after forty-eight days under attack by the pirates, led by their bengal tiger captain Delgato Flint. I was only survivor from attack, but I found myself as captive of the pirates and forced to work for them as their cabin bunny, onboard of their blood-red sailed brig named "Tigress' Claw."_

 _"The treatment by the pirates wasn't better than in the merchantman frigate, but I was able to tolerate such of harsh treatment, which changed my nature even harder and I started - slowly of course but certainly - get to used to the pirates' harsh life at the seas."_

 _"In time, my perseverance and courage in the battles impressed Delgato Flint and eventually I became the high-ranked and his most trusted and loyal member, eventually the first mate of the Tigress' Claw, for seven years. Even the pirate crew started to found their own respect towards me and I eventually made friends with many of them."_

 _"However, when the captain fell in the fight to the direct and mortal shot to the chest from the musket fired from the_

 _merchant ship we had caught and about to take it over, he handed over his ship's command to my responsibility and proclaimed in front of his crew me as Tigress' Claw's new before he succumbed from his wounds."_

 _"The entire crew, including many of those I have made friends with, were at first a bit prejudiced about rabbit being the captain of Tigress' Claw._

 _"But, however, it did not take long when the ship's the biggest bully, the bulky, muscular but_ _extremely arrogant gunner Mr. Krumpanski the rhinoceros, eventually challenged me to the mortal duel for the leadership of Tigress' Claw, when he stubbornly refused to follow me and wanted to get himself to captain."_

 _"I knew that because of my lack of size and strength, I stood no chance against the bigger and stronger rhino and I was even about to back off from the challenge, without caring if I was at risk of being labelled as the coward by the rest of the crew and doomed to be ill-treated the rest of my life on the ship... However, all those crew members, with whom I had made friends during of my time with them, had their strong faith in me despite me being bunny and my lack of size and strength. Many of them had put their faith to me, not my size and strength, but rather to my smartness,_ _flexibility and speed."_

 _"Their faith in me reminded me strongly about Delgato Flint, whose own faith towards me when he was the captain of Tigress Claw was even much more stronger than anyone's else's faith in me."_

 _"So I accepted Krumpanski's challenge."_

 _"And as I said, my the lack of size and strength were against me but my smartness, flexibility and speed were on my side. With them, I was able to dodge the rhinoceros' heavy attacks either with the ax or even with the bare fists."_

 _"And I eventually managed to kill him... with the clear headshot with the musket between of his eyes."_

 _"I was mentally shocked about what I had done and I did not felt myself anymore that humble, honest and poor rabbit I was before, but I had at least earned the crew's full respect and each one of the crew member's full acceptance me as their new captain."_

 _"Then, after I gained the title of the captain, I took Delgato's last name to honor his memory and decision."_

 _"And so, I became the famous and fearsome captain Nathaniel Flint."_

 _"In the following couple years of becoming the captain of the Tigress' Claw, I started to hunt down dozens of huge zoopanish merchant ships, which were_ _extremely_ _fat of gold and jewels stolen from zooztec temples by greed zoopanish."_

"Soon, my cargo hold was after dozen successful merchant ship's takeover filled of tons of gold and jewels."

 _"Eventually I knew that I needed the place, where I was able to keep the secret harbor and continue gathering my loot._

 _"After some time of searching the perfect place, I eventually found this undiscovered desert island which was populated by the small but rather evolved colony of zooztec mammals, who called the island with the name Tropolis - who was in their culture one of the (new imagined) Zooztec gods, who had a long ago landed on the ground of this island to teach them the secrets of the machinery, made out of the living stones - and with whom I started to cooperate in order to secretly hide my treasure."_

 _"Looking for the perfect place for my loot, I learned much of their primitive language and their quite high-ranked technology as hydraulic stone mechanism and their labyrinth inside of the island's volcano."_

 _"And within there was the place, from where I found the perfect hideout for my gold what I had ill-gotten within two years with sweat and labor."_

 _"I had promised to my family to return after two years as rich bunny before leaving to the seas, but the life with the pirates and their typical instinct and lust for gold had took me over that I forget my promise to my family completely."_

 _"In the following eighteen years, I continued my a successfully_ _reign_ _of piracy and I spread out the high pirate terror and destruction among the zoospanish waters all around of Caribbean Sea, hunting down dozens zoopanish merchant ships and attacking to rich trading ports, gathering together year by year tons and tons of gold and jewels and leaving behind the blood and destruction."_

 _"In time, I even grew obsessive,_ _fierce and jealous love towards the highly_ _attractive and the heart-corrupting_ _gold, stronger than any other pirate ever on the Caribbean_ _ever had_ _, even my blind desire of not part with a single coin of my treasure had grown irresistible!"_

 _"And because of my out of nowhere found the sickly lust for the gold, it drove me to spread more chaos and death in order to have more, more, more, more and even more gold."_

 _"Then I started to fear that some of my allies from zooztecs and my own crew were secretly planning to steal my trove. I sensed this when over two dozen my former crew members had left and I started to hear some rumors among the other sailors about my secret trove and "Treasure Tropolis" called island when I walked either openly or disguised in any ports."_

 _"And due to that, I decided to secretly poison my entire crew to remove "_ _impurities_ _" among of my crew, except those few ones who were still the most loyal ones to me and because of the reason that they alone with me knew the location of my trove, all the clues leading to it and all the traps protecting it."_

 _"One of them was my most trusted first mate Claw Bones."_

 _"My fear for my treasure's safety drove me to order the great massacre upon the entire zooztec colony of this island to keep the secret from spreading outside of the island after I had checked the safety of my trove carefully… except for one zooztec yak with the "memory of the elephant", who was unfortunately outcasted by his own people after having the_

 _drink from the_ _sacred and forbidden water source called Fountain of Youth, and who_ _I lured earlier to join my crew as navigator on my ship and in my following quests."_

 _"Except one zooztec… ...memory of the elephant... lured earlier to join my crew… as navigator."_ Judy whispered in her mind and took the quick look at Ben, wondering that did Ben knew that his own people, who dwelled on this island before Flint's arrival, was massacred by Flint in order to make sure his treasure's safety remaining in secret from the rest of the world forever.

If Ben knew, he had probably forgot that long time ago duo of being alone for decades on this island full of trees and rocks to talk.

But Judy started to think of Ben's lifespan, because they lived in the mid-1700s and it had been probably roughly over one century from the golden age of piracy in 1600s and Ben still seemed to be in the features of youth.

It sounded impossible that anyone can even live over century and stay young by the appearance.

And about the water source called the Fountain of Youth... Judy had of course heard the stories about this legendary long-lifespan-granting lost fountain. However, Judy had believed these stories as nonsense but also Flint's legendary trove was believed until this day to be nonsense.

So, Judy started to think that was it possible that the such of fountain was even existed.

At least Ben was said to be the living proof about it... and Flint also mentioned Claw Bones, the drunk cheetah sailor who had rudely entered to Bunnyburrow inn on that night when this all started, to be one of his most trusted crew members who had sailed with him and lived during of his life time.

It wasn't new that Claw Bones was part of Flint's crew, but what Judy remembered about Claw Bones, was his last words before he died in the pirate raid to Bunnyburrow Inn… " _I was ordered long time ago to find someone called with the family name Hawkins_ …" and Flint's true last name was originally Hawkins.

This fact prompted Judy to think about the fact that Claw Bones had probably drank the water from the Fountain of Youth for his mysterious misssion.

But one thing Judy was still hardly thinking, was the fact that how does all this have to do with her and her family line?

Judy continued the reading, hoping to find the answer.

 _"Then, I remembered my long time ago forgotten and disobeyed promise to my family."_

"It snapped me out of my lust like from the

 _hypnosis._ _"_

 _"So, I returned immediately to home under of Zoongland's flag and dressed as the humble privateer, but I found out, much to my shock, that I had been wanted by Dawn Bellwether in order of the king of Zoogland as the pirate and murderer in my own home town. So I could not enter the docks and the streets of my hometown personally, but I was able to get to the shore in the boat in cover of the night."_

"I sneaked back to my old home, but once there I found out much to my shock, that my already-adult son and daughters were already gone and my wife had married another male bunny and they had received new children."

 _"I remember well how my ex-wife looked at me and treated me like the stranger and pirate. She did not want to know me and she didn't want anything to do with me anymore because of my disobeyed promise and choosing the life of the piracy instead of my own family. S_ _he told me to get out of her sight and never return, or his new husband, who happened to be the captain of the guard, is completely free to arrest me and send me to justice to await my final judgment for piracy."_

 _"Then… I returned to my trove and I finally found out that there is just tons and tons of gold and me, nothing else and nothing about the REAL happiness in the life which I had already lost."_

"And under of my deep remorse of my actions, I decided to bury myself with my ill-gotten riches within the labyrinth, but not before I gave the zooztec-made map of this island to Claw Bones and I ordered him to find the one called with the last name Hawkins among all the bunnies and hand over the map only to him or her… proclaiming that my treasure belongs only to the blood line of Hawkins."

Judy was shocked after reading this.

 _"And who ever is my real descendants who eventually finds my treasure, it's all yours now as my final and rightful legacy to you. Use it well to make your life more better than this... and promise one the very important thing to me... do not make the same mistake with all of these riches as I did."_

 _"Captain Nathaniel Hawkins/Flint."_

Flint's story left Judy shocked and without the words after realizing that she and her mother had been the common blood line with the famous pirate captain all of time... and even without their knowledge

"Juicy?" Ben called from outside of the ship.

Judy was startled by Ben's sudden call for her after being about less than half an hour under the deep silence after reading Flint's story.

"Old Ben believes he found the way out of here." Bne said and urged Judy to follow her.

Judy felt herself a bit reluctant to even let go of the book, like her own tiny bunny claws had dug to it.

But however, the way out of here was one of the most important thing to know, so that they would be able to escape from the pirates.

But before Judy went after Ben, she turned to Flint's skeletal remains, and looked at him with sympathy for a while.

"Great-great-great-grandpapa?" Judy suddenly started.

"My name is Judy Hawkins... great-great-great-granddaughter. I... I never believed the fact that my own blood line somehow would be related to you. Nobody has told me anything about this, probably because nobody of your grandchildren even knew about your existence after you were outcasted from your own family line. All what everyone knew was only your treasure... your legendary wealth and as well your own downfall. I feel sorry about all of that what you had to experience among of the pirates and even your own family, because I know all too well how it feels to be abandoned by the family member, like my own father left me and my mother behind a long time ago and never came back... I never knew the reason to it, but now, I believe that the reason might be your own inner greed and the temptation for your treasures. Or, at least I guess so, He might have to leave after your riches, but apparently he never succeeded, unlike I did."

Judy kept a brief pause to think what else she should to tell, until she continued.

"I was equally a repeatedly in the trouble every day in my life, just like you, since my father left. And without him, me and my mother had very hard times with the everyday's problems with my case and my mother's work. Until I eventually found your map, or more likely it was given to me by your cheetah First Mate, who quite rudely entered inside of my mother's inn before we were under attack by the pirates. And after I found your map, I was able with the support of Dr. Otterton and the funding of my home island's Governor Leodore to finally fulfill my childhood dream... to go for adventure on the ocean for a few character-building months to find a treasure of yours, but not out of the greed, but more rather to use your treasure to rebuild our destroyed inn and home... and to a few other things too."

"Well, our voyage from my home port until here wasn't quite easy to me as well as it wasn't to you at first... and all did not go as planned once we arrived to this island. We got into many life-threatening adversities with the pirates infiltrated among to our own more honest and faithful crew." But we, however, managed to fight for our lives through of these life-threatening adversities and even form temporary truce with them to find your treasure. I'm sorry for leading these unworthy garbages of the sea to your legacy, but to save my friends lives I got no another choice nor knowledge about this. But now when I know the truth of all of this and how all of this began, I promise that I will use your wealth well... to honor your very last wish... great-great-grandpapa." Judy said with sympathetic and respectful tone, before she left from the ship and went after Ben... and still holding the book in her paws.

But once she had left from the ship and left Flint's remains behind, his skeletal skull inexplicably created the proud-like grin on his skeletal faces.

* * *

Outside of the ship...

Ben led Judy to the pathway, which kept towering upward towards the ceiling of the cave, and opening the mighty views of the red lava cave and the stone cup filled with Flint's treasures.

The pathway kept towering upwards, until they finally reached to the cave's entrance in the end of the pathway, which was on top of the high cliff next to the lava river bursting out of the volcano like water fall, and which another side was another cliff, but in the more lower level.

From there also opened up the stunning scenery to above of the whole island, far away until the lagoon where Zoopaniola was still standing.

"WONDERFUL! FRESH AIR! FINALLY, FRESH AIR ONCE AGAIN!" Ben exclained and immediately took the deep breath of the outside air, after spending most of the day in the dark and fug tunnels.

Judy let the smile to come to her lips and breathed the fresh, sweet and tasteful air next to the yak.

They also found out that the day had turned almost in the evening, which made them realize that they had lost the time during of walking in the dark tunnels filled with the musty air.

Old Ben then jumped onto the boulder near of the edge of the cliff, spread his arms and...

"Old Ben is the KING OF THE WORLD!" Ben let out the cry over the sky above of the island.

"And so Old Ben would have been if Old Ben's ship would not have collided from the ship's side to the rocks." Ben said.

Judy didn't care about what Ben said in his own worlds. In fact, with the exception of the fresh air at last, Judy didn't show any sigh of happines, because she was still mentally confused and shocked about finding out the truth about Flint's life before and after his first days of his reign of piracy.

And because of this, her ears fell against the back of her head.

"Juicy… is everything okay?" Ben asked after notizing that there wasn't eager expression in the bunny's face and her head was falf hanging on her shouders.

Suddenly, Judy raised her head, her ears jumped upright and she and turned to Ben.

"Come, Ben. We have some work to do." Judy said and she started to walk towards the cave Captain Flint right behind of her.

Ben was a bit confused of this but followed her to the cave nonetheless.

During of their walk back to Flint's last resting place, Judy told Ben everything about Flint's life before and after his pirate's life on the sea, and at the same time the some things about Ben's own life he had probably forgotten, including Ben's drink from the sacred Fountain of Youth, causing him to me outcast of his own people, his own people's massacre in Flint's paws and his time with the Captain Flint himself on the seas.

And Judy also revealed to him the fact that as Flint's distant descendant in Hawkins family blood-line and due of his final proclaim and wish about the treasure, this treasure... kind of... belonged rightfully to her.

Ben was amazed about this, but did not seem to be resentful against Flint about the massacre he ordered upon of his people, because of being outcasted from his people... and just because of one innocent and harmless drink from the clear water source.

Suddenly, Ben was once again in his own thoughts, trying desperately to remember something he had forgotten a long ago.

"What are you doing?" Judy asked out of curiosity.

"Well, everything of that what you just told to Old Ben about Captain Flint's backstory, reminded Old Ben about… something… something… something… something… something… Although Flint might have registered this treasure in the name of your family, Juicy, Old Ben remembers that Flint kind of before his death placed right here to protect his trove one last booby trap…"

A word "booby trap" caused Judy to go in the deep confusion, and it also caused her to created the questioning look over her face.

But before Ben could tell her more, they suddenly heard the deep but the cave-shaking rumble above them… in the ceiling of the cave.

"Speaking of which…" Ben gulped when he, Judy and Flint turned their attention to the ceiling of the cave, as well as the surprised pirates and Wilder did back in the gold-filled stone cup.

There was a gigantic pointed speleothem hanging from the the cave's ceiling, right above of the treasure-filled stone cup... which was probably the thousands years ago separated part of the stone cup

Judy, Ben and Flint also noticed that there was a thousands of sealed kegs of powder somehow attached to around of the massive speleothem and whuch now were one by one exploding in rows around of the stalagmite, causing to huge damages to it.

"Ben, what is this? What's happening?" Judy asked as her eyes widened in shock.

"Well, despite the fact Flint registered this treasure in the name of Hawkins family, he was still afraid that anyone else, who isn't blood of Hawkins, could get the map to their paws, find the treasure one way or another and steal it. So Flint wanted to make with one hundred percent sure that it will never happen, so taking advantage of the possible intruders greed, arrogance, impatience and carelessness, he placed this last booby trap here to prevent any unwanted thieves from stealing his treasure AND LEAVE FROM THIS PLACE ALIVE!" Ben yelled in horror.

Suddenly, a gigantic speleothem broke loose from the ceiling and fell into the middle of the gold-filled cup.

the massive speleothem split with the brutal force the stone cup, as well as supporting pillar beneath of the cup, in half, damaging it seriously and causing Flint's long lost and undiscovered treasure to flow like the golden water fall out of the cup to the chasm and to the molten lava.

Judy was able to hear the scream of horror of the panicking pirates when they ran out of the way of the falling gigantic stalagmite as fast as they legs could carry them.

After a gigantic speleothem had split the stone cup in half, it began to gravitate towards the right-side-wall of the cave from where the lava was bursting out, before it crashed through of the wall with its entire weight and brutal force, shaking the entire cave like the earthquake and dropping the large and small boulders and more various sized speleothems from the ceiling and… worst of all… unleashing unexpectedly tons and tons of lava behind of the wall.

Ben gasped in shock after realizing that right there was the volcano's magma chamber, the closest one to the earth's surface and all-of-time-filled with magma, which was now flooding freely with the overwhelming and destructive power to the cave and threatened to fill it wholly with lava, slowly but certainly.

Ben was also sure that the gigantic stalagmite's tip's impact against the floor of the cave covered by the lava river may have started more terrible than even this.

"Run, Juicy! Run for your life!" Ben shouted with panic.

"I'm not gonna leave here empty-handed. Not after all what we've experienced, lost and suffered to get here!" Judy said determinedly back to Ben, refusing to leave without even the small part of the treasure, with the help of which she and her mother can rebuild their Bunnyburrow inn and home.

"You go back to help Susan, Otterton and the rest of the crew! And if I'm not back there in five minutes, leave without me!" Judy ordered before she turned around and was about to run back to the cliff where was Flint's and his ship's remains.

Ben immediately grabbed from Judy's left arm to prevent her to go to get some of treasure, which is certainly suicide attempt.

"No way! Old Ben is not gonna to leave cute bunny lady here to scorch like a chicken on a skewer!" Ben said, trying to pull Judy back.

"DON'T. CALL. ME. CUTE!" Judy shouted in fury of hearing that word "cute" about her again, turning around and giving to yak such of darkest glare which none rabbit had never before created on their faces.

"Unless she looks at me like that. Hehe… BYE, JUICY!" Ben said nervously, before letting go of Judy's arm and running out of the cave.

* * *

Meanwhile in the cup...

After a gigantic speleothem had split the stone cup in half and before crashing into the stone wall wwith the destructive power whuch released the tons of lava from the magma chamber, Wilder watched in shock and horror as Flint's treasure was flowing down to the chasm and lava flow from the stone cup.

Wilder couldn't believe that all of these long lost riches, who had remained undiscovered over century since Flint's death, were about to fall to molten lava and melt to nonexistent like they had never existed.

"NO! No! No! No! The treasure! No!" Wilder yelled and leaped towards the flowing gold, with the risk of his own life of course, trying to save even handful of gold and jewels into the pockets of his jacket.

Also some of the pirates tried to save some treasures from falling into a molten lava and try to get themselves to the safe.

Redfur was trying with wild boar and badger pirates to save even one with the gold and jewels filled treasure chest from falling with the rest of the gold, but they were eventually caught by the waterfall of millions slippy gold coins and the weight of the heavy chest was only pulling them down, no matter how hard they tried to pull the heavy treasure chest to the edge of the stone cub's edge.

Eventually the pirates finally came to their senses and abandoned the heavy chest, letting it to fall with the rest of the treasure and tried to get themselves to safe.

However, it was too late for them to reach to safe in the edge of the stone cup.

They were already caught by the flow of the coins and pulled dangerously close of the edge of the waterfall of the treasures, until all three pirates, screaming in horror, fell over the edge with all those treasures to their _DEATHS_ in the lava flow.

Wilder wasn't about to give up after a lifetime for searching all of this, which was slipping from his fingers.

Suddenly, he heard the cry of horror and panic above of him and spotted his crew's remaining members, raccoons, Duke, Finnick and the cheetah running in middle of the hidden pathway in the wall of the cave trying to get out of the cave while they still can.

"Come back here, you fur-brained imbeciles!" Wilder yelled angrily in vain at his men.

The pirates didn't either hear him or cared about it. Only one thing in their mind was only to get out of here.

Then Wilder's attention was caught by a gigantic speleothem breaking through of the stone wall, the magma chamber's stone wall, and unleashed a gigantic lava flow from inside of the wall to this cave.

The huge pieces of the stone wall floating on the front of the powerfull lava flow were on a collision course with the critically damaged pillar beneath of the cup, threatening to break the pillar in half with one strong collision.

Instinctively, Wilder jumped off from the cup to the nearby cliff before the stone pieces in the lava flow collided to the pillar, breaking it and the pillar with the stone cup and all remains of Flint's treasure collapsed down and sunk into the molten lava.

Wilder could not believe that entire Flint's treasure was gone forever, after the lifetime of searching it, he had lost everything within ten minutes.

However, as more boulders started to fall from the ceiling and the lava started to rise higher from the chasm, Wilder knew that he had to get out of here himself.

Then, Wilder spotted a very familiar figure on the pathway. He took quickly his telescope out from his jacket's pocket in order to know that who the figure was and zoomed his telesscope towards the figure.

Once the sight through of his telescope was clear, Wilder realized that the figure on the pathway was none else than Judy herself, pulling the huge wooden chest filled with the treasure with her when she tried to get out of the cave.

"Carrots?!" Wilder exlaimed out of surprise and confusion, pulling his telescope down. He realized that he had completely forgot that cabin bunny since the moment when the now-destroyed treasure was found.

And then, the wide and sly grin appearend to the fox pirate's lips.

"Oh, why you little sly bunny." Wilder muttered to himself and went after the bunny.

* * *

 **Gotta end the chapter right here.**

 **I hope that you enjoyed the chapter.**

 **Be patient, because the** **seventeenth** **chapter is on its way and is out soon.**

 **See ya.**


	17. Chapter 17: Wilder saves Judy

**HELLO AGAIN TO ALL CURRENT AND UPCOMING READERS, FOLLOWERS, AND FANS!**

 **It's time to continue from where we were left on my fanction TREASURE TROPOLIS**

 **Because seventeenth chapter is now out.**

 **Enjoy of reading.**

* * *

The cave was rumbling and collapsing faster and faster and piece by piece and the still rising lava had already reached to the level of the remains of Flint's ship, melting the remaining coins and other treasures and burning Flint's ship's and Flint's skeletal remains to dust.

But despite the dozens of falling boulders and collapsing of the cave, Judy fought bravely to get out of the cave, pulling the heavy treasure chest after her and Captain Flint helping her with it bby pushing the treasure chest forward.

Finally, Judy and Flint made it to the cliff and out of the cave.

"Yes! Flint, we are so out of here!" Judy said triumphantly.

Flint giggled eagerly and loudly next to her as they started to pull the chest after them towards the jungle vegetation on the cliff, believing there to be some road leading them down to the foot of the volcano.

Suddenly…

"Ah, Carrots!" Shouted the familiar voice behind of them, which caused Judy to drop her eagerly upright standing ears against behind of her head and turn around to look at the direction of the cave.

She spotted Wilder himself.

The Fox pirate emerged out from the smoke which raised from the cave, wielding the pistol in one of his paws and the noose in his another paw and he had the wide and proud-like but probably hidden smug grin in his face.

"I forgot you completely because of all of this. Thought you got killed, but no. Here you are with some of Flint's treasure. You really do have nine lives like a felines!"

Unlike Wilder did, Judy did not forget Wilder completely, especially those moments he threatened her many times, maybe even tried to kill her, and treated her like the slave or abused pet.

The pistol on his paw and the grin full of the fox's possibly cunning thoughts on his face did not promise anything good.

Judy immediately thought that Wilder was about to shoot her and take the chest to himself.

And not to mention about the noose in his another paw... meaning that if Wilder would spare her, he would, however, tie it around her neck like the dog.

 _Oh, no! Not on my watch!_ Judy thought

As Wilder came closer at her, Judy quickly jumped between of the chest and Wilder and draw out the long sword, which had belonged to her great-great-great-grandpapa Flint long time ago and which Judy had taken from Flint's skeletal remains and pointed its sharp top at Wilder's chest, with the deep hatred towards that fox for all of those lies and abusing treatment she had experienced through the whole voyage in her amethyst eyes.

"GET... BACK, WILDER!" Judy warned the fox pirate, who surprised and half- shocked looked down at the blade, which tip nearly touched his stomach for a while...

...before he raised his head and directed the dark look at Judy.

Wilder dropped the noose from his paw, but almost immediately he draw out slowly his own and much larger sword and put its blade against Judy's sword's blade, still looking at the bunny into her eyes.

"I like you, Carrots. You're brave, spunky and yet stubborn... just like my grandfather had described him when he used to sail with him a long time ago. Until he left him due to his refusal to share all of this with own crew... especially with those two dozen ones who happened to be the foxes, including my grandfather" Wilder said with the dark tone as he kept approaching to Judy.

 _"So, that was what Claw Bones meant with "_ Old sailor comrades _" and what Flint meant in his massage "_ _Over two dozen my former crew member had left,_ _"_ Judy thought in her mind.

"Because he declared that this treasure belongs to the family of Hawkins, before his death." Judy said boldly to the fox pirate. "Due to the fact, that his name, before becoming the most famous pirate of the Caribbean, was Nathaniel Hawkins. And I am Judy Hawkins. This means that the treasure belongs to me and my family… not to the such of scheming and untrustworthy pirates like you!"

Wilder was a bit confused about what Judy had just said.

"So you're saying that this entire treasure belongs, or belonged, to YOU?! Don't make me laugh, cottontail!" Wilder said threateningly.

Judy held her ground bravely front of the fox pirate.

"I'm not kidding, Wilder. And that's perfect information for me, because me and mother need this treasure so badly to rebuild our home and life! And after all the hard work, I'm not gonna let you take what's rightfully mine... " Judy said boldly.

Then, Wilder's eyes widened and took the savage-like look within them and the fox pirate also extended his claws and revealed his bare teeth… and he momentarily growled threateningly at Judy.

"I remember what you told me about your father on that night, Carrots." Wilde growled, causing the expression of inner agony to appear to Judy's face after her father was once again mentioned. "Maybe he left you and your mother behind only because he was about to go to search for Flint's treasure… and then he never came back… for the same reason, the greed. You bunnies might be emotional and peace-loving creatures, but the greed is seemingly inherited through of your family's blood... and I am not surprised if that!"

Judy looked at Wilder with the agony and upcoming fear, against which she had tried to fight desperately and mentally.

Then the smoke, which was bursting out of the cave, mixed with the still rising lava's a fiery red glow… making Wilder's appearance almost devilish in front of Judy.

"And I guess that you're ready to rather die to defend that chest like Flint did… DEFENDING EVEN A SINGLE GOLD COIN FROM ME!" Wilder growled and took threateningly the step by step closer of terrified Judy.

"I do not care to whom you claim this treasure belongs to, Carrots. But I've hunted this treasure longer than you yourself have lived… and l've come too far to let one dumb bunny to stand between me and me treasure." Wilder said with the dark tone and continued threateningly approaching towards Judy.

Judy backed down, the hate turning into pure fear in her eyes as she leaned against the chest. She breathed rapidly and nearly in panic as Wilder approached threateningly towards her. Judy believed that Wilder was now going to kill her in order to get the contents of the chest she was protecting with her life…

But at the same time she was wondering in agony, that was a greed and the lust of the treasure truly the very same reason why her father even left her and her mother behind in the first place and presumably the same blind greed had cost him his life as Wilder had implicitly claimed...

...and what about his own father? Judy remembered well Wilder telling something about his own father sudden departure from Wilder and his mother on that night. Did his own father left him and his mother behind only because of the same obsession to find Flint's treasure like Wilder had been recently?

The greed and the obsession to find Flint's treasure?

Were these two the one same fate, which claimed both of their fathers to their dooms...

...and was it the same fate which now leading both her and Wilder towards their own fate... one in the paws of the treasure-lusting fox and one by getting mentally lost to his own greed and obsession?!

Suddenly...

"SURPRISE!" Heard the doubled voice next to them.

Before both Wilder and Judy had the time to react, Israel Grey emerged out from the bush nearby, taking Wilder out of surprise and pushed him off the cliff.

And right after Israel Grey, the Governor Leodore emerged out of the bushes and grinning with the pleasure he pushed Judy too off the cliff.

But much of his horror, the treasure chest fell off the cliff with Judy.

* * *

Both of them, Judy and Wilder, were falling down to the lava river, which was flooding out from the underground tunnel.

Wilder, however, managed to cut his fall by putting quickly his crutch between of two branches and he was left hanging on his crutch for a moment.

Wilder then spotted that the chest had landed on the flat cliff above of him, and he started to swung himself towards the wall right in front of him, and after a few swung, he managed to reach with his pawe and get himself to the wall's lower and dangerously narrow cliffs and started to climb the wall to reach ot the cliff and have the treasure chest back.

However... Judy wasn't so lucky.

Leodore had pushed her so hard off the cliff that Judy, during of her own fall to down, collided roughly against the opposite side's rocky wall and kept falling by sliding down along the wall, getting at the same time roughly hammered by out of the wall pushing rocks and while trying desperately to grap from one of them… and while Captain Flint trying to unsuccessfully go after Judy and save her from falling to the certain death in the lava river...

...until Judy barely got a grip, with her still sore arm's paw, from from one of the rock ledges and remained to hang in it for her dear live.

Judy did not dare to peek over her shoulder and look down, knowing that a fiery red clow came from the lava river flowing below of her.

Now all what Judy was trying to do, was desperately trying to pull herself up to the safety.

It was more easily said than done, because inside of the volcano, the fast-flowing lava carried more and more different-sized boulders with the tide against the lava-covered inside wall of the stone, hammering it like the battering rams hammering the gates and roughly shaking the outside wall with the huge massive power, causing the rock slides to slide along the slopes of the volcano or sending the large boulders on the move.

Ignoring this, Grey, Leodore and his two soldiers prepared to have the treasure chest.

Grey had tied the life-line rope around of his waist and climbed down along the another rope from which Leodore and him men held on in the edge of the cliff from where they pushed Wilder and Judy off.

Wilder was about to climb to the edge of the cliff where the chest was lying, miraculously still in one piece, having survived from the fall and impact against the flat surface of this cliff's. Wilder sighed in relief and started to climb the rest of the way to the cliff.

Suddenly, Grey arrived on the scene.

"Well, well, well, Wilder. The fall didn't kill you after all than what I thought at first," Grey said to Wilder with the derisive tone.

"Such of pity… I would have liked to see the filthy fox with to black burned fur," Leodore yelled mockingly from upper cliff.

Unbeknownst to him, Grey growled at him because of "filthy fox" word and murmured to slit his throat open once they're back in the ship and far away in the sea.

Grey then turned back to Wilder.

"It was also such of pity that you managed to save the single chest from that the pit of hell turned treasure chamber inside of volcano… but luckily to us, the big and fat one," Grey said.

Taking advantage of Wilder being cripple due to his peg-leg, which slowed his climbing up, Grey tied the another rope's loose end around of the chest.

Grey then jumped onto the chest and took the triumphant and mocking look at Wilder.

"And it seems that we're gonna take the chest with us. And we cannot say anything else but thanks." Grey said mockingly and gave the signal to Leodore and his men to pull him and the chest up.

"Bye, "captain" Wilder!"

Wilder let the deep growl out of his mouth.

"Oh, no you don't, Grey!" Wilder barked to his former crew member turned rival/enemy and started to climb the wall as fast as he could.

He wasn't gonna to give up so easily after hunting Flint's trove all of these years.

"I'm gonna have back that treasure chest and I'm gonna send you two to walk the plank into the sea chained to the weights!" Wilder threatened both Leodore and especially Grey for betraying him like this.

"Ooh, I'm so scared. downright terrified!" Grey mocked Wilder's threat, which was followed by Grey's mocking laugh.

Suddenly, Captain Flint jumped next to Wilder's head, crying in panic and pleading to Wilder, who ignored the monkey for three minutes, before he at first time since the failed bargain with the map with Judy back in the cave, he finally payed the attention to his pet monkey.

"What? What it is, Flint?"

Then Wilder took the attention back to Grey, who laughed viciously, looking at and pointing with his finger something behind of Wilder.

"And what about her then?" Grey asked mockingly and with the sadistically pleased tone.

Though at first confused, Wilder took the look behind of him to the opposite wall... and spotted Judy, hanging in the rock for her dear life in the lower cliffs above of the lava river... and hanging yet with her still sore arm.

Looking more closely, Wilder spotted that the rock where Judy was hanging was slowly but certainly starting to detach from the wall, threatening to drop Judy with it into the lava river.

"Carrots!" Wilder gasped in shock. Despite the fact Wilder had treated that bunny with the abusing manners since the mutiny, He was still fond to this bunny during the voyage before the mutiny.

Instead of climbing up, Wilder started to climb down in order to get to the same level where Judy was hanging, much to Grey's and Leodore's surprise.

Judy, not knowing that the rock where she was hanging was about to detach from the wall, continued desperately climbing to the rock.

But it wasn't easy, due to her still sore arm, the falling boulders, the burning heat coming from down below and the shaking wall made it more difficult and Judy was about to lose her hope, until…

"Carrots! Hawkins! Judy!" She heard the familiar voice calling her name.

Judy dared to turn around her head a bit and she noticed Wilder climbing down to her.

"Wilder?!" Judy gasped with a surprise, because she had believed that the fox pirate would have just climbed after the treasure and left her here to die.

Wilder landed on the small cliff, which was not so close but not so far from the rock where Judy was hanging for her dead life. It of course wasn't quite in the same level with Judy but there was not way to continue the climbing down.

He had to be hurry, because the shaking of the mountain was dropping now the bigger boulders upon of them and one of them, which landed on the rock where Judy was hanging, almost split the cliff in half.

Wilder put his crutch between of nearby's tree's two-branched branch to have some support from it, before he carefully but still hurriedly leaned towards Judy as much as he was able to and extended his left paw towards Judy while holding from his crutch with his right paw.

"Carrots! Reach to my paw!" Wilder cried at Judy.

Judy put completely aside his hatred and distrust towards Wilder for all his lies and foir abusing threatment towards her and extended her own paw towards Wilder's paw. Holding on the rock with her sore hand. This made Judy to grit teeth in pain.

"Well, well, well. That's interesting." Grey whispered to himself standing by and watch Wilder trying to save the cabin bunny's life from the danger of death.

Grey then signaled Leodore and his men to low him down as he started to load his pistols.

Leodore hesitated to obey this for a moment, because he was thinking about the safety of all of that what was left from the biggest treasure of the world.

Eventually, but very reluctantly, Leodore ordered his men to low the fox pirate down.

* * *

Meanwhile...

"Reach to my paws, Carrots!" Reach!" Wilder encouraged almost in panic and worry for Judy's life.

It was not use. Their paws were only less than half a meter apart from each other to reach.

"Wilder… I-I can't reach!" Judy cried desperately. Her tearing amethyst eyes were filled with the tears of pain, because of her sore arm, and panic.

And much to Wilder's horror… because of Judy's sore arm, the pain was causing Judy's grip on the rock to loose and she was slipping down!

"Hurry up, Carrots! You're slipping!" Wilder cried with the horrified tone.

Suddenly, Wilder heard the vicious giggle behind of him and turned his head.

Grey was standing on the chest which was lowered to near of him.

"You're good to fool your own men and others… but you can't fool me, Wilder."

Wilder let out of the angered growl at Grey, until his attention turned to Judy, who had tried to meanwhile take foothold from the tiny cliff next to the rock, which had unfortunately break under of her feet and she fell back into for her dead life hanging position.

"You even dared to call yourself the bloodthirsty pirate… even for the fox… because the real bloodthirsty pirate without remorse nor compassion would let that dumb bunny to fall her death," Grey said looking at Wilder with the evil grin.

"What are you going to do, you treacherous snake? Shoot me or push me off the cliff?" Wilder growled glaring angrily at Grey.

Grey was like not knowing the answer… yet… wielding the pistol in his fingers.

"Hmmm… nope, Wilder, but now I'm gonna make you realize that what you really are, old friend. I know that we two have been recently some arguments and even rivalry between of us, which doesn't make us friends... but now I'm gonna to you to see what you have failed to see. For example, your skills as our captain has recently been lowered highly down as well as his own crew's loyalty... and it is all thanks to her!" Grey said as he pointed with his clawed finger down at Judy.

"Don't you realize? She's the reason, why you aren't anymore the same captain as you used to be! You were supposed to fulfill your long-lasted life-long goel but that cabin bunny's interference ruined everything we had planned before the "right time", as you said, and spoiled our captain in behind of our backs! But it's not too late to redeem yourself in the eyes of the remains of the crew. Everything what you need to do is forget that dumb cabin bunny, turn your back to it, leave her to her miserable and, unfortunately, less painful fate and come with me, so that you can start over everything from the beginning again and become once again that old blooththirsty, twisted and ruthless captain you once were... all what you have to do to start over is to hand over your title as the pirate captain over of the remains of our crew to me and And declare me as your captain... and I serve me at first the few upcoming years as a simple sailor in my crew until you will be promoted as my high-ranked First-Mate, what do you say?"

Wilder didn't say a word. He only let out the angry snarl out from his mouth at Grey as he stared at him with the anger in his eyes.

Besides, he was more than just less willing to let go of his title of pirate captain and his fulfilled life-goal and hand them over to his traitorous fox.

Even Grey noticed this... and created the evil grin on his face as he decided to use the another way.

"What's the matter, Wilder? Did that bunny take your tongue? Then for that, let's make her little unfortunate and life-threatening situation… much more fun," Grey said with the dark tone.

To Wilder's shock, Grey took out one of his pistols and fired with it at Judy.

The bullet hit directly to the next to Judy's slipping sore arm's paw and caused Judy to loose her grip on the rock and slip from the rock… and sent her to fall down.

"CARROTS! NO!" Wilder cried as he watched in agony Judy's falling down.

However, Judy got a hold from another and more smaller rock puching out of the wall… which was situated at a much lower level of the wall beneath of the one where both Wilder and Grey were right now... and remained to hang in there for her dead life.

Judy let out the loud yelp in pain as she got the grip from the rock and her own weight pulled her sore arm to straight. The painwave ran through of her body and she nearly was about to let go, but she managed, just barely, to ignore it and started to pull herself up to safety.

Suddenly, the rock where Judy was hanging for her dead life a moment ago, finally came loose from the wall and started to fall down… towards of Judy!

"Carrots, look out!" Wilder cried to Judy after noticing the danger which threatened the bunny's life.

Judy managed barely duck the falling boulder, which barely missed to crush her fingers beneath of its weight, but threw the more smaller rocks to Judy's face and she nearly lost her grip on the rock again.

And, Grey even started to empty his pistols one by one by firing with them at Judy, which one by one narrowly missed her arms and paws... and caused her slip again, but she managed to just barely hold her grip.

"STOP! STOP THAT, GREY! You're making the things much worse than what they already are!" Wilder barked at Grey.

"Come on, Wilder. That was just... for fun and that doesn't kill anybody. Besides, it was part of your test, old pal. Grey sadistically said before he then signaled to Leodore and his men to put him and the chest down to the flat cliff nearby of Wilder. And when they did, Grey started to loose the ropes around of the chest, much to Leodore's confusion and even shock.

And after the chest was safely on the cliff...

"Face it, Wilder. You're just a pirate, fox pirate. Nobody likes us because we're the foxes and pirates. We hunt, we kill, we torture… without pity or compassion. We trick the others, we steal from the others, we take from the others... without permission and without hesitation. And all of this because of what? This?"

Grey opened the chest to show its contents to Wilder, who's attention was caught away from Judy by the glitter of the gold coins, nuggets, bars, different colored gemstones, jeweled jewelry and crown and several golden artifacts what is able to fit in the chest.

"The treasure is the pirates, meaning ours, a never-ending target, our goal, our purpose of life why we're doing this. The treasure which makes us rich. A treasure that attracts us to it like the flies on the dead flesh. The treasure which brings us the happiness in our life... And watch it… watch the glitter of the gold coins… the colors of the jewels… You just want to touch it… feel it in your fingers… feed your lust with it… and when it has overcome you… it never lets you go," Grey said as he was doing with the treasure right that what he was saying.

Wilder himself looked at the treasure… his own life-time goal because of which he had turned into the piracy and which he had hunted for years og his entire life and was ready to do anything - in the form of the act of piracy - to even touch it.

Then Wilder turned back to Judy, who was still hanging with the dear life in the opposite side's wall, far below of them, to where his paw did not reached.

Wilder saw much to his shock that Judy's grip was once again loosening and that's why slipping, not only because of pain but because of the exhaustion of hanging in there for a while and the burning heat of the lava river below of her.

Wilder even tried to reach her with his paw, although it was useless.

Then Wilder turned back to the chest's treasure and Grey.

Grey was quite surprised to see Wilder's watered eyes.

"What are you crying, big boy? Because of that bunny's certain fate?" Grey said mockingly. "Forget about her, Wilder. You do not need her. You already got what you have wanted all of your life. The treasure… Captain Flint's legendary and long-until now-undiscovered trove... or what's left of it."

Grey had put Wilder in the bad situation… the choosing out of the heart. The choosing between of his life-time goal or the life of the innocent cabin bunny.

"Don't you remember what you said to me back in the galley, Wilder?" Grey asked again, with the vicious and taunting smile.

"Wilder, please! Help me!" Judy pleaded as her grip was about to slip.

" _You cared about one thing and one thing only in your life. And what it was? Flint's trove, of course. And you said that you'll not risk it all for the sake of some… nose-wiping little brat!_ " Grey taunted, imitating Wilder's words back in the ship's galley when they arrived to the island.

Wilder then continued looking back and forth at the treasure and Judy.

When he looked at the treasure, realizing at the same time that his typical pirates' instinct lust of gold had nearly overcame him...

...but when he looked back down at helpless Judy far below, he saw in Judy's amethyst eyes, tears of fear, weighty exhaustion, burning heat, pain and desperate pleading for help.

"WILDER!" Judy's pleading cry echoed to Wilder's ears, probably having overheard Wilder's words back in the ship's galley, this time coming out from Grey's mouth and probably having overheard everything else what Grey had said to Wilder.

Grey saw clearly the agony and fear for another's life in Wilder's eyes as he looked down at Judy.

"So why you even care about that dumb bunny. She's bunny and you are the fox. You two are not supposed to even care about each others. You're not supposed to care about her and she's not supposed to care about you. You two are supposed to be mortal enemies and as the fox, you're supposed to kill and even eat the bunnies!" Grey snarled, reminding Wilder about the law of the nature between of the nature enemies such like the bunnies and the foxes.

"The real pirate, the real fox, cares only about the treasures and himself… nothing else. That's how we live, Wilder. I'm sure that you're not willing to risk your life-time goal for one dumb, nose-wiping little bunny brat. If I were you, I would accept my offer to come with me and leave her down there."

Wilder didn't turn his eyes away from Judy... even after hearing this from Grey.

"Oh, so sweet. Never believed to see in my life so-called mentally "unbreakable" bloodthirsty fox pirate playing softy…" Grey taunted.

"You know what, Wilder, you don't need that brat. Come with me. _Her pathetic life is much more worthless than this the precious treasure of yours, so leave her to die!_ "

Hearing all of that concerning Judy and watching her nearly in-death, Nick allowed the deep growl in anger to escape from between of his lips.

He took the look one last time at the treasure chest, which was closed and tied up again by Grey as he was making his leaving, before he turned back to Judy...

...and it was then when Wilder finally realized which one was more worthless one and which one worthy one in the life.

And suddenly, Grey leaped from the cliff towards Israel Grey that the evil fox pirate had not time to react to his sudden attack...

...before Wilder puched him hard against the stone wall of the cliff, causing him to hit his head to the stone.

The impact of his skull with the stone wall caused him to go dizzy, but not out completely.

"You're wrong, Israel Grey," He deeply growled at the fox pirate.

And after it, Wilder quickly turned to the ropes tied around of the treasure chest, draw out his sword and cut one of the ropes off and hardly pulled it down from Leodore's soldiers paws down to the cliff... and luckily, in it's another end happened to be perfectly to him the grapnel.

Wilder was ready to take the action and rushed back to the edge of the cliff and by the whistle, Captain Flint grabbed from the grapnel and took it with him as the monkey quickly climbed to this cliff's stunted tree and leaped from it to another stunted tree of the opposite side's wall, climbed a bit upwards as the rope's for something limited length allowed and then the monkey firmly attached to the stones of the opposite wall's rocks...

...but befire Wilder took the action, he suddenly stopped and slowly turned his attention towards the one last treasure chest of Flint's trove - his lifelong obsession - lying on the same cliff without the guard.

Wilder stared at it for a while speechless like he was in trance and nearly he allowed the rope to slip away from his paws...

...until he realized what he was doing and snapped out of it by slapping himself into his face for multiple times.

"Oh! Blast me such of DAMNED OLD FOOL!" Wilder barked, scolding himself for falling the victim of the lust for the treasures once again.

* * *

Meanwhile...

Judy had already lost all her hope. The heat of the lava made her feel uncomfortable and her sore hand was very near to slip from the rock out of the burning waves of pain running from her arm through of her body... and yet she was sure that Wilder would not come to save her from the certain death after being certainly corrupted by Grey and his manipulating words.

The tear escaped from the corner of her eye and ran along her cheek.

She tearfully mumbled to herself something like her the very last pray.

"Mom… I'm so sorry," She whispered for the last time - believing that she would never see her mother again - and was about to let go…

"JUDY!" She heard Wilder's voice calling her by her REAL name... and she was immediately filled with a new hope and she hurriedly turned to the coming direction of Wilder's voice.

Bad move, because the move was rashly done and she completely forfopt her sore arm...

...until her grip eventually and suddenly slipped from the rock.

"NO!" Judy cried as she started to fall the rest of the way down to the molten lava.

Judy closed her eyes, waiting for the molten lava to touch her and burning her to death...

...until she suddenly felt the arm wrapping itself around of her waist and cutting her fall.

Judy dared to slowly open her eyes and she realized that she was flying above of the lava river, in Wilder's grip.

"WILDER?!" Judy shouted in surprise.

The fox pirate flew above the lava river holding from the rope with his right paw and holding Judy with his left arm from around of her waist... as the fly's speed swung them upwards and they were qquickly approaching at a new cliff in the opposite side's wall.

And when they were close enough of it and their speed upwards in the air was slowing down, Wilder let go of the rope and they both landed to the edge of the cliff and remained to hang from there for their dear life, Wilder still holding from around of Judy's wairst with his left arm and with his right paw from the cliff.

And with Captain Flint's help, Wilder helped at first Judy on the cliff before he climbed on the cliff himself ith Flint's help.

Then they were both in the cliff, heavily panting, but still alive and safe.

Judy, turning her out of surprise and shock widened eyes at Wilder, was completely surprised about the fox pirate's heroical act, realizing that even after everything they've been through with the hostile manners, Wilder had just saved her life from the certain death... abandoning at the samer time something else for her.

"Wilder… you… you saved my life. But… but what about…? You… you… you just gave up…?" Judy said, gabbling in her words out of surprise and shock.

"Just a lifelong obsession, Carrots. l'll get over it. Besides, there's a many others hidden troves than just this one all around of the world... waiting for their discoverer" Wilder said back as Flint was nuzzling against his face.

Judy remained still speechless, still shocked about the fact that she was rescued from death by the fox pirate who had treated her since being captured in Ben's cave like slave or abused pet in order to find Flint's treasure.

Suddenly, her ears dropped down against the back of her head and the small but sweet, sheepish yet thankful smile appeared on her face... and even Wilder took his own small and sheepish grin on his muzzle... trying his best to avoid the eye contact with Judy's own.

"Wilder!" They suddenly heard the angry barking behind of them and they both turned at the coming direction of the barkings.

They both then saw, much to their shock, that Israel Grey had somehow managed to get to the same cliff, as he climbed up to the edge of the cliff. The fox pirate stared at them with his highly savaged eyes, which were filled with the bloodthirst and yet his claws were extended and his fangs bared at them as the evil fox pirate growled angrily at them.

And after Grey had stood up on his feet, he took something from his belts, did the short-lasting thing with them and then he threw these things towards them.

Wilder's eyes widened in shock as he recognized the things Israel Grey just threw at them.

"GRENADES! HURRY UP, CARROTS! TO THE COVER!" Nick cried in horror and quickly pulled both Judy and Flint up from the ground - muich to Judy's surprise - and dragged them far away from the ignited deadly weapons… inside the nearby cave, which Wilder had spotted in the wall on the same cliff.

And as Wilder, Judy and Flint entered inside and retreated deeper into the cave, Grey threw more ignited grenaded towards the entrance of the cave.

Knowing that the grenades will soon blow up, Wilder quickly took the cover behind of nearest narrow stalagmite inside the cave... and to make sure Judy and Flint will not get harmed by the blast, Wilder pulled them inside of his jacket into the cover.

About five grenades in the spot where Judy and Wilder were about a couple minutes ago after Wilder rescued Judy, and those another five grenades too in the entrance of the cave - blew up when Wilder and with his jacket covered Judy and Flint reached into the cover nick in time.

The explosion created the thick smoke, which flooded in the air into the cave and the explosions also threw the sharp and deadly shards of the grenades as well as the rocks towards their shelter.

And though the stalagmite knocked some shards of the grenades off their fly, some of them passed the stalagmite and tore in the process Wilder's jacket's hem into the shreds... but all three of them survived without further physical damages.

After the explosion was over, Wilder released Judy and Flint from under of his jacket.

Judy held with her paws her twisted nose as the sign that she was highly disgusted of something.

And the something what disgusted her was... the sweaty scent in Wilder's clothes.

"Eww, Wilder! When was the last you've been in the shower?" Judy asked from the fox with the disgusted tone as she still held from her nose with her paws.

However, Wilder had not time to explain that to Judy, when they suddenly both spotted Grey's dark figure entering to the cave through of the thick smoke and aiming at them with his re-loaded pistols.

"I'll tell you later, Carrots! Now RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!" Wilder shouted in the warning-like tone as he and nearly after him dragged Judy ran deeper into the caves as Grey opened the fire at them with his pistols in the blind rage.

He missed both of them as the bullets hit poorly aimed to the walls of the cave instead of Wilder, Judy and Flint.

Grey barked loudly in anger that it echoed in the cave.

"Come back here you cowards!" Grey roared as he re-loaded his pistols and went to follow Wilder and Judy into the caves... using his the sense of smell to track them down in the caves, which were undoubtedly labyrinthine like the first one.

Meanwhile, in the cliff, Leodore grew more than just impatient.

The lion governor was also highly furtrated after seeing that his the fox pirate partner had went after Judy and Wilder instead of staying to help him with the treasure chest as the yhad agreed in their deal and truce.

"What the heck about that pirate fox?! Pull men! Pull the chest out of there and watch out for not to break it or snapping off the rope... even by the accident." Leodore growled at his men as he eventually threw aside the deal with the fox.

The tiger and wolf soldiers started to pull the treasure chest up from the cliff below of the one they were standing, as carefully as they could and with caution not to break the chest or accidentally cause the rope to bub against the sharp stones of the wall.

Leodore didn't help his men. The lazy-like lion only watched from the edge of the cliff to make sure that nothing bad happened to the chest.

It took a while from the soldiers, before the chest was completely pulled to the cliff where they were standing.

After the chest was standing safely on the cliff, Leodore could not resist the temptation and he hurriedly opened the chest to take the look to the treasure inside of it.

He looked at all of it with the hungry look in his eyes as he poured some gold coins and gemstones into his paws and held it close of his faces.

"Gold… so much gold… gold." He whispered in spellbound. "Finally… Flint's famous treasure is in my hands… and it is all mine."

Tiger and wolf soldiers looked at each other from aside, thinking that after having to do heavy work they also had the right to get their own share from the treasure after all of this.

Suddenly, this moment was disturbed by the small rock slide from above and the ground started to quake and rumble like thunder.

This one cannot mean anything good.

Leodore quickly closed the treasure chest again.

"You two, take the chest and carry it after me. We return to the ship at once!" Leodore hastily ordered, in half panic about all of this rumble and quaking.

"What about that fox, sire?" Tiger soldier suddenly asked.

"We'll just leave him behind." Leodore simply answered.

"And after we're back on the ship and far away from the island before it either sunks to the sea, I think that we have some overweight to get rid of as witnesses." Leodore said with the dark tone, as his men grabbed from the chest's lower corners and lifted it up from the rgound.

And then, they started to carry it with them as they walked after Leodore off the cliff and back to the ship through of the jungle.

* * *

 **Gotta end the chapter right here.**

 **I hope that you enjoyed the chapter.**

 **Be patient, because the eigh** **teenth** **chapter is on its way and is out soon.**

 **See ya.**


	18. Chapter 18: Judy Hawkins vs Israel Grey

**HELLO AGAIN TO ALL CURRENT AND UPCOMING READERS, FOLLOWERS, AND FANS!**

 **It's time to continue from where we were left on my fanction TREASURE TROPOLIS**

 **Because eighteenth chapter is now out.**

 **Enjoy of reading.**

* * *

After having narrowly survived from the blast Grey had threw upon them...

Wilder, Judy and Captain Flint kept running in the tunnels trying to find the way out of the volcano and get away from the Grey, who was in savage-fury right behind of themm barking loudly and angrily.

Suddenly, they both then arrived to the crossroad of the ten different tunnels, making them confused and unsure where to go.

"Flee, flee! Run for your lives! There is now way out… nor way to hide!" Grey's vicious cry echoed in the caves.

Judy tried her best to keep herself calm, but the savage fox like Grey's attendance and fierce approaching made her almost panic.

"What do we do, what do we do, what do we do, what do we do!" Judy cried.

"Stay calm, Carrots. I'm trying to figure our way out of here." Wilder said and began to sniff an air.

"How to stay calm when we're seemingky lost in these shaking tunnels and out there is the savage and bloodthirsty fox pirate after both of us, Wilder? Even his menacing attendance gets my blood to clot." Judy said almost in panic.

"Gets my blood colt! Gets my blood colt!" Flint imitated.

Wilder did not respond back to Judy.

Instead, he turned his stern look at the monkey to silence him, before he continued to sniffing the air and kept doing it for while, until he opened his eyes.

"Fresh air… coming from the tunnel in the right side corner of this cave... and there seems to be even a bit day-light, coming from the tunnel's left corner. There might be the way out. Come on!" Wilder said and grabbed from Judy's wirst and both of them rushed into the cave.

Captain Flint remained voluntarily behind to hold Grey off after hearing the evil fox pirates furious growlings and barkings coming from very closer...

...so Flint rushed to their arrival direction to face the evil fox pirate.

And as the monkey faces the evil fox pirate, Flint ambushed Grey by throwing him the eggs and rotten tomatoes to him from the ceiling of the cave.

But, however, Grey had prepared better for the monkey this time with the lethal force and tried to shot the monkey with the multiple shots with his pistols and couple of blunderbuss... easily overpowering the monkey

Flint narrrowwly dodged the next shot which, however, managed painfully to scratch Flint's right arm, forcing the monkey to make hasty retreat back to the crossroad of the caves, where Judy and Wilder had been minute ago.

With his arm wounded and the scratch bleeding and crying in pain and panic, Flint spotted their shadows on the wall of the tunnel and knowing that Judy and Wilder had gone there, Flint rushed after them.

Also Grey, wipping of the eggs and tomatoes off his faces and cursing the monkey at the same time as he was uploading his pistols, arrived to the crossroad.

And as it did with with Wilder, Judy and Flint, the place made him confused and unsure where his prey went.

However, to track them down, Grey used his fox instincts by sniffing the fox's and bunny's scent in the air of the cave… and also spotting with his night vision the blood line in the floor leading to the one cave right before of him… and also hearing Flint's echoing cries in pain from the same tunnel and also some low mumble-like speaking voice of Wilder after monkey's cry.

"There you are!" Grey laughed viciously, as he entered to the cave.

* * *

Meanwhile...

After the long run in the tunnel, which was leading upwards, Judy and Wilder found out the tunnel ending up to a new cliff, which was right above of the Flint's former treasure chamber turned into the massive magma chamber, where the lava was slowly but certainly rising up towards them.

Judy quickly checked the area, only to find out that there was no another way out of here... only the cave from where they had arrived to this cliff.

"From where did you get the scent of the fresh air, Wilder?" Judy asked in frustration.

In response to her question, Wilder pointed with his finger up to the cave.

Judy took the look up to the solid ceiling of the cave... in which was the one small hole, which shot the beam of the day-light through of the ceiling and the beam light ended up to land to the entrance of the cave behind of them.

"Some volcanos has the large holes at their peaks, which are usually sealed close by the solidified lava from the previous erruptions. The ceiling of this cave must have been the hole in the peak of this volcano, meaning that we're near of the peak." Wilder explained."

However, these news didn't pleased Judy.

But that's still too high above from this cliff for us to reach to it by climbing, because of the walls being the vertical, nearly smooth and backwards tilting wall, the mountain is shaking endlessly, dropping tons of boulders from the ceiling upon us... and not to mention about the the psychopathic fox after us." Judy said.

Suddenly, Flint appeared to them.

Judy, and also Wilder, gasped in shock after seeing the monkey's bleeding wound in his arm.

So Judy kneeled down next to Flint, tore long part of her shirt's remains, which caused her shirt to be unusable and left her upper body completely bare, which didn't bothered her because there was very hot air due to lava and to close sealed ceiling preventing most of the heat from escaping.

Judy also picked up luckily in nearby on the ground lying piece of wood and tied it under of the part of her shirt around of Flint's wound, trying to prevent it bleeding too much.

"Here you go, Flint. That will help you for a while 'till we get back to Dr. Otterton." Judy said gently to monkey.

Suddenly, Flint jumped on Wilder's left shoulder and cried Grey's words to his ears, loudly, that also Judy was able to hear it.

"There you are! There you are! There you are!" Flint cried.

These news left the shocked and desperate expressions in Wilder's and Judy's faces... after realizing that Israel Grey was still right behind of them.

"We must hide, but where?!" Judy cried in hurry.

Wilder started quickly to look around of them to find with his eyes some place, where they can hide from their evil hunter.

* * *

After the while...

...Grey eventually emerged out from the cave and entered to the cliff, only finding out it to be empty.

However, the angry fox pirate knew that Judy and Wilder were still here, because it was completely impossible to climb out of here and there was not any other way to escape from here... and the only way out of here was blocked hy him... with the uploaded blunderbuss and axe in his paws.

"I know that you two are out here. I can even smell you." Grey yelled, as he started to look from everywhere for Judy, Nick and Flint with his eyes and used as well his sense of smell to track them down.

He heard no answer coming for neither of them. In fact, he didn't expect them to answer to him... because they were trying to evade him by running and "cowardly" hiding from him.

And he was right.

Judy, Wilder and Flint were hidden from him behind of the large stone boulder in next to the entrance of the cave of the cliff, which was dropped from the ceiling of the cave onto this cliff by the violent shaking of the mountain.

They hoped that Grey would go far enough from the entance of the cave. So that they could sneak past of him and escape him to the caves and somehow out of the caverns and from the volcano to retrieve the treasure chest Grey and Leodore stole from them.

It happened, as they hoped.

Grey started to walk the step by step away from the entrance of the cave, looking from behind of every onto the cliff from the ceiling fallen boulder, trying to catch even a single glimpse from either Judy's long ears or Wilder's long tail from behind of the boulders.

Judy and Wilder were prepared even for this, by Judy keeping her ears down and Wilder holding the top of his tail to prevent them to be seen.

They also prepared for that Grey was probably trying to find them by trying to catch the noise of Flint, so they were forced to gag Flint's mouth in order to prevent him from causing any noises, which could reveal their presence to Grey.

As Grey stepped away from the doorway, they started as quiet as they can to sneak towards the entrance of the cave to get out of the cliff. Still hiding behind of the fallen boulders nearby of the wall, and sneaking forward from boulder to boulder one by one in every time when Grey wasn't watching to their direction.

Suddenly, Grey started to talk.

"Wilder, you brought the shame upon our species. You saved that damn bunny, who's species supposed to be our natural enemies. Only true pirate, true fox, would never have rescued that dumb cabin bunny's life and sacrifice the treasure… our life-time goal."

"Once I find you and your "bunny friend," I'm gonna tie you to cannon and throw you to the bottom of the ocean, but not until I've forced you to watch from aside how I skin with the knife your little cabin bunny friend alive… nice and slowly… 'cause I wanna make you to watch how she suffers, make you to hear her screams in pain... pierce her body to the skewer above of the kitchen fire and force you to eat her as your final meal..."

Judy gasped in shock after hearing that, that her ears nearly jumped upright over her head, nearly revealing them to the evil fox pirate.

She realized that Grey was far more than just serious about his words... and with his claim about inmammally eating bunnies.

He truly was gonna kill both of them... in cold blood and with the sadistic enjoyment about it.

Such of threats about skinning made Judy feel disgusted and her skin gooseflesh.

Wilder also was shocked that Grey was threatening him by threatening Judy's life with the such of threat.

He already sensed Judy's fear and landed his paw to Judy's shoulder comfortingly.

"Don't be afraid, Carrots. We're gonna get out of this… together." Wilder whispered.

Judy smiled at the pirate fox, but she was still afraid that all of them, even thought there was three against one psychopatic fox, who had the ax, several grenades and uploaded pistols and blunderbuss, and nobody mentioned about his claws which had already caused the awkward-looking scars on her cheek, would not get out of here alive.

"Keep moving, go!" Wilder whispered and they continued their escape behind the boulders as Grey was still far away from the entrance of the cave, still looking for them from behind of the boulders near of the edge of this cliff.

"Come out, come out, where ever you are. Come on, come on, come to papa." Grey said tauntingly while looking at them.

Judy and Wilder were finallyreached to the entrance of the cave they quickly and silently emerged out from behind of the boulders in order to try to sneak away from the cliff… so quiet as they could so that Grey would not hear them sneaking away.

Suddenly…

"THERE YOU ARE, YOU COWARDLY RATS!"

Judy, Flint, and Wilder quickly turned their attentions towards Grey, who had after all found them by trying to sneak away - either by hearing them or tracked their scent - and had quickly turned to their direction, firing with two of his pistols... and eventually with two of his blunderbuss... at them

Judy covered her faces with her paws when Grey opened the fire at them but both the shots hit only to the stone wall behind of them, not to her… nor to Flint, who had took off the gag from his mouth and cried loudly at Grey next to her.

As the shots hit to the stone wall and in the cave's air space echoing noises of the gunshots were fading away, Judy dared to uncover her faces… but when she did, she noticed Grey uploading his weapons ready to fire with them again and then turned to Wilder…

Wilder lied on the ground next to her and Flint... and the fox pirate weakly convulsed in pain.

There was also the small pool of blood under of his head!

"NO!" Judy cried in shock and agony, realing that Wilder has been shot to the head.

Judy let herself to fall on Wilder and she put her paws on Wilder's back.

"Oh, Wilder!" Judy cried in agony.

After Grey had uploaded his pistols, he started slowly walk towards Wilder and Judy lying on the ground.

"Ooooh, did I hit him in the head? How pitiful." Grey said mockingly to Judy.

"Hopefully I shot him by the way which will kill him… very slowly in your arms!"

Judy's tearful amethyst eyes widened in fear for Wilder, before she turned from Grey back to Wilder.

"No! Wilder, don't do this to me! Fight! You have to fight it! You're gonna be alright!" Judy cried in shock, horror, worry and agony, which drove her to leaned her head against Nick's back.

"Oh, so you care for him, cabin bunny? I knew that he had feelings towards you after all." Grey said mockingly.

"But don't worry, you'll join him… or in fact, he'll join to you!"

Grey then raised his pistol up and aiming with it at Judy's forehead attempting to kill her with the single shot.

All what Judy was able to do, was only look at Grey's eyes filled with the pleasure of doing this and the barrel of his pistol aaiming her to the head and wait the death coming for her.

However, Flint, angered by his master's presumptive certain death, attacked surprisingly and furiously to Grey's faces, causing him to drop the pistol and fall to his back on the ground.

"Revenge! Revenge! Revenge!" Flint cried loudly as he beat Grey's faces with his bare hands.

However, due to his sore arm from the gunshot wound received from Grey, the monkey has mo match for the stronger evil and psychopathic pirate fox, who grabbed the monkey from its tail and threw the monkey over the edge of the cliff… seemingly sending the monkey to fall down to the lava chamber to his death.

"NO!" Judy cried and in anger, the bunny attacked Grey while his attention was still elsewhere and kicked fiercely with her legs to the fox pirate into the face.

The evil fox pirate's was caught off guard by Judy's sudden attack as he was trying to stand up, and the kick from the bunny caused him to fall over on his back to the ground again.

"This is for Wilder!" Judy cried in anger and started to beat Grey's faces with her fists.

Despite her fists tiny size, anger increased Judy's strength ddouble times and she beat the evil fox faces with the untamed fury and so hard that one of her hit sent off a couple of teeth out from Grey's mouth and caused one of his eyes to went black.

However, Grey eventually managed to grab from Judy's left arm, leaving the bunny badly surprised.

"Get off me you filthy bunny!" Grey growled angrily and loudly, as he started to beat Judy's faces brutally with his into the fist squeezed right paw for the coupole-three punches, leaving a bad bruises over her scars on her cheek...

...until the evil fox pirate ended up to claw with his right paws claws Judy's bare chest, causing Judy to gasp in shock and pain and she quickly backed off for two step away from the fox and she placed her left paw over the three long bleeding claw marks in her chest.

Grey also tried to claw Judy's eyes, but the bunny was prepared for this and leaned backwards before the fox's claws even touched her face's skin from the area of her eyes and quickly stood up on her feet and ran away from the enraged fox pirate.

As Judy was heading to the doorway, Grey quickly grabbed his pistol, aimed Judy with it and fired.

The pistol's bullet passed Judy from her left side and narrowly missed her neck's left side before it hit to the ground before of her, forcing panicked Judy without the thinking to turn her direction from the entrance of the cave to along the wall upwards towering passageway emerging out of the wall on her right side, and which was leading to the another cliff far above of this one - where was in fact multiple different levelled cliffs emerging out from the wall in one place.

Grey then took his two double-barreled-blunderbuss from his back and started to fire with them rapidly at Judy, hitting with the blasting hits to the rocks around of Judy and narrowly missed the bunny with every shot, as she ran and disappeared to the upper cliffs.

"Is the hide-and-seek game what you want? Good!" Grey yelled after Judy.

"I don't bother to count to ten, cabin bunny. You know that the odds are highly against you because you have no any way to escape from there now, which means that finding you in this little game of ours will be ALL TOO EASY!" Grey yelled after he had uploaded his weapons again and went after Judy.

Judy climbed quickly and went behind the big boulder, which was standing on the edge of the upper cliff's upper cliff, to hide and cover from Grey and his weapons.

In there, she was able to take some breath and recover from being shocked after her narrow survival from the bulled, which could have rip her neck's left side's jugular open and kill her to the quick blood loss.

But recovering was too easily said than done, because her right arm had got a bad hit/scratch from Grey's blunderbuss bullets and it was bleeding, torturing at the same time Judy by the waves of pain thus making Judy grit her teeth in pain.

Judy kept fighting the pain as best as she could... as well as her own will to moan in pain to prevent herself from revealing her hiding spot to Grey stalking her out there.

"Come out, come out, where ever you are." Grey whispered mockingly, ignorantly of that he was approaching her all the time.

Suddenly, Judy's wrong move (which she did accidentally by convulsing in pain) caused some loosened rocks to fall down along the rocks, revealing to Grey both her hiding spot her presence.

"THERE YOU ARE!" Grey shouted and opened brutally the fire at Judy.

Judy was now in the very bad trouble, being cornered behind the huge rock as the bullets hit with the blasting effect to the outer side of the rock.

The blasting impacts against the rock caused the boulder to even move a little bit after taking the several of brutal blasts to beneath of it, blasting the some rocks, which were holding the large boulder in its place, into pieces with every heavy impact from the blasting shots.

This also caused Judy to lose her balance, due to her leaning against the same boulder in the rock to get loose from its place due to the heavy impacts from Grey's double-barreled-blunderbuss bullets.

As Grey was uploading his weapons again, Judy's attention was caught by the loose movements of the boulder, behind of which behind she was hiding.

If the boulder moved in its place a little bit, it means that it may be pushed out of its place... and yet it was in the perfect position above of the evil fox, who was right at the moment in between of the loose boulder and at the edge of the cliff.

Judy then fell under of her thoughts...

...that is she's able to push the boulder off its place and on the move to downwards, she may lose her only perfect cover against the fox pirate's bullets but the boulder might also throw Grey off from the cliff to the lava chamber.

It was very risky and nearly suicide mission, but observing to the cliff, where Wilder's body was still lying on, the sight lit a new spark of rage inside of Judy's heart.

"Time to die, brat!" Grey barked and opened the fire at Judy again.

"Yes, but not mine, but yours!" Judy cried from behind of the boulder and pushed with all of her strength the boulder off the cliff.

The rock rolled down towards Grey with the deadly power, but Grey was quick enough to jump out of the rolling boulder's way, which fell off the cliff and fell to the lava chamber.

When Grey's attention was still in the falling boulder, Judy jumped off the cliff and landed unexpectedly on Grey's shoulders, causing him to drop his weapon with only one shot left to the ground, and both Judy kicked him to the lower cliffs of this cliff.

as Grey was falling, he grabbed from Judy's angle and took her with him.

They struggled with each others as they rolled down the cliff, until they landed dangerously close to the edge of the cliff, leading to the long fall to the lava chamber.

Despite her tiny size and even being still wounded, Judy managed to gain upper paw over Grey and pinned the fox pirate to the ground.

However, Grey hit with his fist to Judy's wound in her right arm, making her to yelp loudly in pain and thus allowing Grey to pin in his turn Judy to the ground.

Grey then grabbed with his right paw from Judy's still sore shoulder and squeezed his iron grip around of it, even sinking his claws in Judy's flesh, making Judy to grit her teeth in pain.

Grey also grabbed from Judy's throat with his left paw. He wrapped his fingers around of Judy's slender neck and then squeezed his fingers into the iron grip around of her neck, causing Judy to gasp desperately for the breath and cough strongly due to the lack of oxygen as Grey tried to choke her slowly to dead.

Judy tried to fight against the fox's brutal strength, but it was useless for her own lack of strength.

After five minutes...

Because of the huge wave of pain and Grey's iron grip around of her neck blocking all oxygen supply, she wasn't able to breathe, causing her face slowly turn into blue and her eyes began to blow out of her eye sockets

"Now die!" Grey whispered and brutally tightened his grip with his both paws around of Judy's neck, causing Judy to moan in panic, pain and lack of oxygen.

When Judy started to lose all her hope again…

"Revenge! Revenge! Revenge!"

Flint, who appeared to be still alive (because the monkey was saved by the dead tree branch on the cliff and climbed it back to the cliff to rejoin to the fight) appeared to Grey's shoulder, unexpectedly to the evil pirate fox and started furiously to rip the fur from the fox's head, causing the fox pirate to both yelp and growl out of pain.

Grey let go of Judy's throat, leaving her to lie down to take some breath and recover, as Flint was still fighting against the evil fox pirate.

Eventually Grey grabbed the monkey from his tail again and threw him aside but instead of turning to finish off recovering Judy, Grey pulled out all his pistols one by one and fired at Flint who was forced to retreat behind to rocks to avoid the shots.

Luckily to Flint, every shot missed the monkey and instead of uploading his weapons again, Grey extended his claws and went after the monkey.

Grey's savage-like attack forced Flint to retreat to the secondly upper cliff, from where Judy had kicked Grey off a moment ago, and was followed by the evil fox pirate, who was right behind of him. Flint however climbed more faster than Grey and quickly get far away from Grey's reach to cliff.

Before Grey could reach any closer to Flint, Judy, now fully recovered, jumped on him and kicked his head against the wall with the hard kick of her legs.

Grey yelped in pain and let go of the edge of the cliff to which he was about to climb, falling roughly along the cliff until he plumped down to the ground of the third and more lower cliff below.

After quick recovering from the rough fall, Grey spotted his double-barreled-blunderbuss he had dropped earlier, thanks to Judy's unexpected counter-attack from behind of his own back.

And remembering that there was still one shot left, Grey grinned viciously and stretched out his paw in order to grab to it, so that he can use its the last shot to kill Judy with it.

Suddenly, Judy jumped on his head, pinning his head against the ground and preventing him to reach his gun.

Judy then jumped from Grey's head towards his blunderbuss and grabbed it from the ground.

Grey quickly stood up on his feet and tried to attack again Judy with the extended claws and bared fangs, but before he could, Judy quickly turned around and aimed with Grey's own blunderbuss at him, cornering him against the lonely boulder attached to this level of the cliff.

Grey seemed to be surprised of being aimed and cornered by the bunny using his own gun against him.

Suddenly, he started to smile at Judy.

"My congratulations, cabin bunny. Well played." Grey said mockingly.

"I admit that I may not have played a fair game because of using the guns against the unarmed ones. But you're a lot tougher than what I thought, for the bunny. And I thought your species as frightened wimps and weak losers. Well, you proved that I was wrong in your case."

Judy looked at the evil fox pirate with the angry glare.

"You're angry, frustrated and vengeful… I see it from your eyes… and for what? Because I killed your friend Wilder with the one single shotin front of your own pretty eyes." Grey mocked with the sadistic grin.

"Remember that if you're going to kill me, my death doesn't bring him back… but it instead turns you… the little honest bunny… to the same bloodthirsty pirate as me. And if you don't kill me, I'm gonna kill you… nice and slowly."

Judy tried to ignore what Grey had just said, but soon her eyes lowered from the Grey's own to his gun and then briefly to Wilder's corpse on the another cliff bellow.

It was true, Judy's vengeful wish to kill Grey for killing Wilder will not bring Wilder back and it would turn her herself to the monster which Grey was already, more badder brat than what she was back in her hometown before this whole voyage.

Her entire goal during this journey was become the better, not badder, person than what she once was.

"The choice is yours, cabin bunny. Kill me and become like me or don't kill me and I'll kill you instead." Grey laughed mockingly.

Judy breathed heavily due of her internal struggle between of her will to kill Grey as revenge for Wilder or not become like Grey.

Grey didn't show any sign of fear in his eyes… even though being threatened by his own gun used by the bunny.

Her heart beat inside of her chest rabidly out of the tension.

Beads of sweat run down along Judy's head.

Her angered purple eyes then slowly returned back at Grey.

"What are you waiting for? Do it if you even dare. Or are you too afraid to do that?" Grey laughingly mocked.

 _"Be like me!"_ Grey said with the dark tone and look in his eyes.

After hearing that, Judy once again let the anger took over her and she placed furiously Grey's blunderbuss barrels on Grey's throat right under of his chin, pinning him harder against the boulder and causing his laugh to stop like in the wall.

Judy held the gun's barrels on Grey's neck for five minutes more, heavily breathing in anger as she glared furiously at Grey's eyes.

Flint watched the whole situation from aside curiously but also worried about Judy's ultimate choice be the monster like Grey or seal her fate in Grey's hands.

Suddenly, Judy took the gun off from Grey's throat and shot the last bullet to the air, much to Grey's surprise.

"I'LL NEVER BE LIKE YOU, VILLAIN!" Judy cried in anger and threw the gun over the edge of the cliff to the lava chamber, much to Grey's fury.

Judy then turned back to Grey, glaring at him with the angry look, which had even some proud of her ultimate decision.

"That was very stupid from YOU, BUNNY!" Grey barked in savage fury and pulled out his ax, attacking Judy again.

Judy gasped in shock and quickly retreated from Grey's reach as he swung the ax towards her neck twice.

Grey swung with his ax towards Judy like maniac gone completely insane but Judy just narrowly dodged all of them.

After dodging Grey's third attempt to strike her with hisax, Judy tried to run off the cliff. But before she could, Grey dropped his ax to the ground and grabbed painfully from her ears and swung her above his head like a rag doll.

"Do you want to warm path, cabin bunny? Lets then put you in the bath!" Grey asked sadistically before he threw Judy over of the edge of the cliff.

Judy was once again falling down to the lava... to her certain death

But before she did, she nick in time managed to grab from the dead tree's branche in the edge of the main cliff of the cave.

And the tree branche, in which she was hanging for her dear life, was the same one tree branche which had saved Flint's life after he was threw over the edge by Grey after the monkey had saved Judy's life.

"Not again!" Judy moaned in frustration after realizing that the situation - remaining to hang for her deal life above of the red-golden sea of molten and deadly hot lava - ironically repeated itself in her case.

Judy then heard the sadistic giggling above of her, which immediately and ominously got her ful attention, and much to her shock…

...Grey was approaching her from the upper cliff's passageway wielding the ax in his paws, until he was standing right above of Judy on the edge of the cliff.

Grey laughed heartily with the sadistic pleasure as he looked down at Judy.

Grey then began to chop the branch with an ax... in order to drop Judy to her death.

"NO!" Judy cried as she realized what Grey was attempting to do to her.

"Oh, yes!" Grey said sadistically and continued chopping the branch with the bloodthirsty grin, almost causing Judy to loose her grip as one of the ax's impacts againjst the branch shook it strongly.

 _"Do say hello to Mr. BOGO for me!"_

Judy quickly tried to figure out what to do and out of pure instincts, she started to Grey's confusion to swing on the branch to back, front, back, front, back, front, back, front, back, front and back, until Judy eventually with all of her strength threw herself upwards from the branch and towards the edge of the cliff and Grey.

Grey was surprised by this sudden movement and tried to swung his ax towards Judy for one last time, but missed and Judy flew over of his head.

Grey was about to turn around to face Judy one more time, until…

"Why you don't tell him BY YOURSELF?!" Judy cried and kicked Grey to the backside of his head with her legs and with all her strength left, causing the evil fox pirate to overbalance rapidly forward amd towards dangerously close of the cliff, where he immediately lost his balance and was about to fall over the edge.

But before he did, he tried to one more time grabb Judy from her leg and drag her with him... again.

However, Grey eventually let go of Judy's leg once he landed on his back to the branch and was rolling along it towards its tip.

The evil fox pirate tried grab from the branch to prevent himself to fall to the lava chamber... and successfully managed to grab with both of his paws from the tree branch and remained to hang in it for his dear life.

However, the branch was already highly weakened by the work of Grey's ax and Grey's weight was too much to it... until the branch eventually snapped in half from the spot which was nearly chopped off with the ax and dropped Grey to the chamber.

"NOOOO!" Grey cried as he fell to the lava chamber and burned to dead after he disappeared beneath of the surface of the lava.

Judy had managed to grab from the remaining part of the tree branche before she managed to fell down to the chamber.

And once she slowly but eventually managed to climb to sit on it, she watched after Grey's fall to his death.

Israel Grey was finally gone for good, and Mr. Bogo was finally able to rest in peace, and which also allowed Judy to have the calm sigh of relief and out of exhaustion after the brutal fight against the now-dead evil fox.

Judy then started slowly to climb up to the cliff... and when she finally reached to the edge of the cliff…

Someone offered the paw to help her up.

Highly exhausted Judy raised her tired eyes along with her slightly bleeding and bruised faces to look up, and to her shock, she was looking at Wilder's gentle emerald eyes, as he - joined by Flint, who was standing on his shoulder - squatted down and offered his help by stretching his paw for her.

Wilder's faces were half covered by the blood and he had a bad-looking scratch on the right temple of his head… but at least he was still alive.

The tired wide smile appeared on Judy's faces and she sighed deeply out of relief again and accepted Wilder's help by grabbed on Wilder's hand.

Wilder pulled exhausted bunny on the cliff and kneeled down next to her to check her well-being.

"Are you alright, Carrots?" Wilder asked.

Judy did not answer. She instead tiredly raised her head upwards and met the old fox pirate with the eye-contact between of them.

Then, the exhausted bunny leaned her head on Wilder's chest, and wrapped her arms around of his waist and hugged him tightly, relieved from that both she and Wilder were still alive, much to Wilder's confusion.

But Judy didn't car about it.

Before Wilder was able react in any way to this, he saw something in another side of the same cliff.

"What's that?" Wilder asked from himself as he pulled out from Judy's arms and went closer to check it out.

There was the fireball moving through of the cliff along the black line.

Wilder lowered his head closer of the black line and sniffed it.

"Powder?"

Wilder followed the black line faster than the fireball did, until Wilder found the horrible truth from behind of the stone corner, which was over the years shaped from the wall's solid stone by the nature.

There was a huge pile of sealed powder kegs.

Wilder even spotted more caves which were going in the circle around of the cave's wall above of them, and the each cave had their own large cliff's, either above or beneath of them...

...and using his telescope, he spotted that those caves were filled completely full with the large numbers of the sealed powder kegs and also their own black powder lines were on fire and almost reached to the kegs.

"By my tail!" Wilder whispered in shock as he slowly lowered down his telescope... and then he quickly rushed back to Judy.

"CARROTS! HURRY UP! WE GOTTA GET OUT OF HERE! THIS PLACE IS ABOUT TO EXPLODE!" Wilder yelled loudly.

Because Judy was too exhausted after her long and exhausting fight with Grey, Wilder was forced to grab on Judy and lift her body over her left shoulder and wrapped his arms wround of her to prevent her from falling off his shoulder as he hurried out of the cliff to the cave with Captain Flint right behind of him.

There was after ten minutes a huge explosion, which was followed by the nineteen similar explosion, telling to Wilder that the fire had reached to the powder keg piles.

The explosions were powerful enough to shake the entire mountain five times harder than before, causing Wilder to nearly lose his balance while running through of the tunnels, while trying to carry Judy out of the caves to safety.

...and the damage caused by the explosions was enough to cause the entire peak of the mountain to collapse onto the magma chamber, blocking the every way out of the magma chamber and causing at the same time the rock slides to fall down along the mountainside.

The larges rock slides were born as the violent shaking of the mountain caused the huge parts of the mountainside or the large cliffs in the mountainside to collapse and turn into the deadly rock slides.

The stone map in the feet of the mountain was at the moment crushed and buried under the massive slide of the huge boulders.

Also the cave, where Wilder was still running along the tunnels and trying to carry Judy to outside of the mountain, was about to collapse, threatening to kill them both with the falling boulders, which were able to smash fatally their heads or by burying both of them alive under the falling boulders.

However, both Flint and Judy's body on his shoulders and his feet running double time for the dear life, Wilder managed to narrowly escape out of the cave to the same cliff, where he was able to let go of his lifelong dream/lust of gold to saved Judy from the certain death.

The cave behind of them was completely collapsed and the tunnels were blocked by the collapsing boulders

The rock slides were worsening and they needed to get out of there before they will be crushed and burried alive by the lethal slides.

But Wilder briefly ignored the boulders, kneeled down to the ground and gently drobbed still exhausted Judy to the ground to check her well-being.

"Carrots, are you well?" Wilder asked, worrying about Judy's wounds from her vicious fight with Israel Grey.

Slowly but certainly, recovering Judy, who had closed her eyes during of Wilder's narrow escape from the collapsing caves of the volcano, opened her eyes and locked them at Wilder's own emerald eyes.

"Not completely, but I'll recover from my injures in time." Judy said slowly and weakly.

Judy looked at Wilder's emerald eyes with the gentle, forgiving and sweet smile and Wilder answered to it by looking back at Judy's amethyst eyes, smiling gently back.

"Thank you, Wilder… for saving my life." Judy thanked shyly but forgiving at the same time in her mind to Wilder for everything he had done as an act of piracy.

Wilder closed briefly his eyes and his smile widened, before he opened them, looking at Judy's eyes.

"I think than I am the one who should here thank one brave and spunk bunny with the golden heart for freeing this old foolish fox pirate from my lifelong obsessive dream, which has haunted me for years until now. Thanks for it, Carrots." Wilder said thankfully and gently, with a one hundred percently implying that Judy's wellbeing and safety was far more important for the old fox pirate like Wilder than his abandoned lifelong dream: the discovering legendary Flint's long-lost treasure.

Judy then stood up to sit and unexpectedly leaned her head against Wilder's chest once again, before she completely jumped into his arms and wrapped her own arms around of Wilder's neck to very tight hug...

...which, of course, left Wilder to be confused about this sudden move of this bunny.

"Awww… Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!" Flint cried next to them eagerly, making both Judy and even Wilder to chuckle a little bit before Wilder pulled out from Judy's hug and hurriedly shut Flint's mouth before the monkey could say anything else.

"Not gonna happen, you little rogue." Wilder scolded, due to the differences in both of their ages, as Judy being 17-years old bunny and he himself being over three or four times older than the bunny.

"Aloha, Juicy!" They suddenly heard the familiar voice coming from below of them.

Judy quickly stood up on her feet and being supported by Wilder, Judy tiredly walked to the edge of the cliff and they both looked down to see that who had called Judy's name in a familiar way.

They soon realized than in the feet of the cliff, on which the ywere both standing, was Ben and the remains of captain Susan's loyal crew… expect Susan and Dr. Otterton themselves, who did not seemed to be with them

"Hurry up, people! That big fraidy-cat with his nasty red-coat soldiers and the remaining pirates have returned back to the ship!" Ben cried at Judy and Wilder.

"They're gonna leave this island and leave us here!" Fabienne roared next after Ben.

"Captain and doctor are their hostages on Zoopaniola." Peter yelled next after the Fabienne.

"We have to go after them and quickly!" Jack yelled from the tree branch, to which the squirrel had climbed.

"We got the ropes and hooks to get you out of there!" White Fang, who was carying the rope and hooks, yelled to Judy and Wilder.

Though Both Judy and Wilder were shocked about the news that Leodore had returned to the ship with his remaining soldiers and the pirates, they were also relieved about the fact that the remains of Susan's crew had the way to get both of them down from the cliff, off which did not seem to be no way out by on their own... so that they could go after Zoopaniola and reclaim it back once and for all.

Suddenly, a huge and powerful shaking shook the volcano's mountainsides and its surroundings even harder, knocking all of them off their feet and over to the ground.

"And there's more bad news, Old Ben's instincts tells to Old Ben that we have no much time to get out of this island before the volcano, more than certainly, is about to erupt and takes the whole island… AND US WITH IT TO THE WATERY GRAVE IN THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN!" Ben cried in hardly controlled panic!

After hearing these news, Judy and Wilder looked at each other with the shock in each others faces.

 **To be continued...**

* * *

 **Gotta end the chapter right here.**

 **I hope that you enjoyed the chapter.**

 **I tried to make this chapter - as well as Judy's and Grey's final battle - so epic as I could. I hope that I was successful in it.**

 **Be patient, because the** **nineteenth** **chapter is on its way and is out soon.**

 **See ya.**


	19. Chapter 19: Escaping from the Island

**HELLO AGAIN TO ALL CURRENT AND UPCOMING READERS, FOLLOWERS, AND FANS!**

 **It's time to continue from where we were left on my fanction TREASURE TROPOLIS**

 **Because nineteenth chapter is now out.**

 **Enjoy of reading.**

* * *

After Judy and Wilder had landed to the ground along the ropes which Ben and Susan's remaining crew members had throw to them, Ben called immediately the pack of half-wilde horses he had befriended and "tamed" during of his time of the island.

"Where did you get these horses?" Jack asked from Ben as a tiny squirrel jumped on the horse back.

"Abandoned/marooned on this island, as old Ben too. only a long time ago before Old Ben" Yak explained.

Because there wasn't saddles nor reins in the horses, meaning that directing the horse may be much more difficult, Ben took immediately from all of them the leader of the horses and said that where ever the leader of the horses goes, the rest always follow him, so he claimed that there was nothing to worry about controlling the horses while riding.

And then...

Judy, alongside Captain Flint, Wilder, Fabienne and Peter took their own horses while White Fang and Jack took the same horse to ride.

And soon they left from the volcano and headed towards the lagoon, where Zoopaniola was supposed to be still standing after Judy's and Israel Grey's first major duel in the ship's main mast for Flint's map.

Because Ben knew this island better than anyone else did, he led the group in the back of the leader of the horses, Judy in his side… mainly reminding him to focus to leading them to the lagoon and stop talking his own things.

Suddenly, there was to be heard the loud yet deep hum coming from the ground beneath of their horses feet... before the ground itself started to quake beneath of their horses feets, which caused Ben's half-wild horses to halt and nearly get out of Ben's control... or... some of them even jumped on their hind legs and fell over to the ground... nearly tossing their riders to the ground.

Then there appeared the quake wave in the ground, which caused the ground beneath of their horses feet to heavily rise upwards and then sink to the ground like the huge waves in the surface of the ocean.

It did not lasted long as the waving of the ground passed the group quickly... but it at the same time brought down several trees around of them and.

The ground's waving had also left behind the mashed soil ground under of their feet.

With the help of the Ben, the group managed to calm down their horses.

"What was that?" Judy asked after calming down her horse.

"As Old Ben said, the volcano is about to blow up. It is predictable from earthquakes." Ben explained.

"Now when Flint's Trove's cave is filled by the lava and the volcano's hole in the top-side of the volcano is blocked by the huge pile of rocks and the ground beneath of us is shaking and waving the ground, there's developing the massive lava chamber with the volcanic gases and pressure in full power inside of the volcano, and beneath of the trove-cave. The lava chamber is crowing even more and more bigger in underground in any minute… and then… the upcoming explosion of the volcano equivalents to ten similar eruptions, strong enough TO WIPE OUT THE ENTIRE MAP OF tHE MAP BY SINKING IT TO BENEATH OF THE SEE SURFACE!" Ben explained.

Others could not but gasp in horror after hearing this, until another thunderous sound sounded and was followed by another earthquake which shook the ground beneath of their horses feet.

"What are we then standing here? Let's get out of here while we still can!" Judy shouted to others and they continued their way back to the lagoon.

It didn't take long from them when they reached to the lagoon.

But much to their horror, they notized that Zoopaniola was gone!

Leodore had left with the remainings of Flint's treasure and the pirate crew, plus Susan and Otterton as his prisoners, and left them behind to die.

"That accursed fraidy-cat!" Wilder barked. "I should have shot him in the head when I had the chance!"

Judy took the look at Wilde, with the dead-serious nod and the expression as the sign of agreement ebout Wilder's idea.

The shaking was getting even worse shake by shake, as the beach started to wave beneath of them and caused one palm tree to fall over to the ground, which nearly crushed White Fang's and Jack's horse - and them as well - under of its weight.

"We have to get out of here somehow!" Jack said when he climbed White Fang's shoulder as the white-furred female wolf tried to calm her nervous horse.

"How, Jack? There's no boats left!" White Fang said with the desperate tone to the Squirrel on her shoulder.

The situation got even worse when small lava bomb hit near of Fabienne's and Peter's horses, causing them to fall from their horses backs to the ground after the poor animals went in panic and out of control. Ben quickly rushed to calm down the animal and helped the moose and snowleopard back on the backs of the horses.

Judy watched to the lagoon curiously and doubtfully.

She then, completely surprising and confusing the others, jumped off from her horse's back and hurriedly climbed to the top of one still standing palm tree, where she licked her finger and raised it as high as she was able.

She felt that the wind didn't blow from backside of her because it blowed from right side of her, from the east.

"Albeit Zoopaniola is the fastest ship of all Leodore's ships, Zoopaniola has not been able to leave the lagoon that fast, because the wind blows from the east, as it did when I and Ben were on the top of the cliff back in the volcano." Judy said to the others as she was climbing down from the palm tree.

"Are you sure of this?" Fabienne asked doubtfully.

"Well, if I were wrong, we should see Zoopaniola sailing in the other side of the lagoon, either inside or outside of lagoon once we get to here." Judy said back.

The crew was not quite pleasened about that information.

"That information doesn't help us, Carrots. If you believe that Zoopaniola would still be inside the lagoon while the wind is blowing from the east, where ship is then right now?" Wilder, calmly in this time, demanded to know.

This was the questiuon Judy did not know how to answer.

"Maybe in the west-side river of the lagoon." Old Ben said simply.

Everyone's eyes turned to the yak, with the expressions like they were all silently demanding him to tell more.

Ben, however, sensed that they were gonna eventually ask from him all with one voice "How do you know that?"

Ben huffed, so quickly others had forgot that he was the only one on the island who knew the entire island better than anyone else.

Yak opened his mouth before anyone managed to open his/hers mouth to ask.

"There's the west-side river in the west corner of this lagoon, the bottom of which has been formed by the nature as an inclined slope heading downwards, thus making the water of that river to run faster... especially during of high tide... and the luck seems to be with us, because it is the high tide.

Judy tried to ask from Ben that where did this river led, until Ben simply interrupted her and kept explaining.

"And… it leads out of the island's lagoon to the open ocean." Ben explained.

Judy fell then under her own thought about this.

And after ten minutes.

"West-side river in the west-corner of the lagoon… wind… blowing from the east… an inclined slope formed by the nature in the bottom… river… running faster during of high tide." Judy mumbled.

"What are you thinking, Carrots?" Wilder asked ass he saw Judy being fell deeply under of her thoughts.

However, Judy didn't answer to him.

"Carrots?!" Wilder called her name.

"Maybe Leodore found out this by himself too. He knew that we'll return to the lagoon where we left Zoopaniola. He found out that the wind blows from the east, he knew about that river and its flow… maybe… maybe… maybe he…" Judy mumbled.

Others were looking at her curiously yet nervously due to the still quaking land under of their feets.

Then Judy unexpectedly raised her voice.

"That's it! Leodore wanted us to see the empty lagoon to get us to believe that he had left from the island and to send us to despair! He and Zoopaniola are right now in that river Ben is talking about, trying to get out of this island. The fast-running flow of that river together the east-wind blowing against Zoopaniola's remaining mast's sails are carrying Zoopaniola faster through of that river with them, He may be in the middle of that river at this moment!" Judy shouted as she realized the reality of the sight Leodore had left for them.

"He has a long head start. He may be even already at the open seas!" Jack said.

"There's no way to catch the ship in the horseback before it reaches to the open sea! White Fang added.

"There's however one thing left. I know the quick short-cut to the river, but it as well as the river are almost next to the volcano, which is at the moment at the risk of erupt. Old Ben says that it's mostly the suicide attempt to even try that way."

"And who knows when the volcano erupts, and either blocks or collapses our way to the ship, leaving us without any chance to get pass the volcano." Peter said

And that means, it's impossible." Fabienne said, already giving up the hope.

"Well, didn't we then survived from the vicious hurricane and from being sunk in the eye of maelstrom during of our voyage to here… even though we weren't prepared for that kind of storm back then." Wilder reminded to the crew.

"And there's also the saying… "Always worth a try." Judy added.

However, the crew almost immediately refused to take part of this plan to try to catch the ship with the horseback in the road, which led the pass of the volcano, which could erupt in any moment.

"Well, it's your decision then." Judy said as she took the control over her horse, turning her around and started to ride towards the path Ben had mentioned, led by Ben and they were soon followed by Wilder… leaving the others behind without any thinking, much to their surprise and shock that they were intention to leave them behind as the island was at the danger to be wiped off from the map by the soon erupting volcano.

Judy then briefly halted her horse and turned to the crew.

"But remember that Ben told us that the enormous pressure inside the mountain is powerful enough to wipe out everything on this island… and the quakes are getting the stronger enough to sink this island to the ocean." Judy reminded.

"And remember that you yourself have decided to stay here... and probably to be killed either by the violent quakes of this island or by from the sky falling lava bombs or by the massive and monstrous cloud of smoke, Ash, rock and volcanic gases or by with the lethal force into the island flooding waters when the island starts to sink… rather than even try to get to the ship, because of your doubts about that path's safety… although it might have our only way and our only chance to get out of this island alive?"

The crew was then more than confused about these alternate choises, knowing that each one of them will lead only to the certain death.

Then, the another quake shook the ground under of their feets, making the beach to crack, causing the huge boulders to emerge from the ground and a bit far away, causing Ben's cave and the rock to collapse to the rock slide.

And not to mention about couple lava bombs hitting to the ground in the jungle, right behind of them, surprising the crew very badly.

"You better to make your alternate choice quickly, we have no much time!" Judy demanded with the dead-serious and stern voice the answer from the crew.

* * *

Meanwhile... in the middle of the high-walled river, the Zoopaniola.

With the quickly-fixed main mast - which the pirates, after removing from the explosion damaged part of the mast trunk, had with the ropes and with all of their strenght pulled and attached the mast with everything they have back into its place - sailed with the speed gaven by the wind and the fast running river towards the another head of the river, which led to the ocean and far away from the island, which was at risk to tear itself apart.

The boulders and trees were falling down from the edges of the cliffs above of the mast, making the crew, all remains of Wilder's pirate crew, to take shelter from somewhere.

"Stay where you are, men!" Leodore said, guarded by two of his remaining guards on the bridge.

"As long as me and my treasure get far away from this island to the safety in the open seas, there's nothing to fear... not even a tiny quake of the ground or falling boulders. Leodore said proudly to the men, meaning only himself and the treasure and that the pirates were worth nothing to him."

This caused the remainings of Wilder's crew, raccoon brothers, Duke and Finnick, female cheetah, Mbaya, Croco the crocodile and rhino to snarl angrily at him during of their work.

* * *

Meanwhile...

Under the deck, in the cannon deck, Otterton and Susan were tied up together back against back and guarded by the Vincent the bear.

Vincent, however, had turned his attention to else where from the otter prisoners and was spending his time of drinking and scratching himself with his claws.

Otterton and Susan, exhausted by multiple attempts to break free from the bounds, were not able to do nothing else than just sit down and mourn their friends left behind to the island by Leodore and mostly their own upcoming fate.

Leodore had ordered the pirates to prepare the vice-anchor and once they were out of the island, the prisoners will be tied up to the anchor and to be thrown overboard with it to the depths of the ocean… to their watery _tomb_.

Otterton sighed in despair and sorrow.

"All my life, l dreamed of an adventure like this. But I never believed in my life to die like this." Otterton said to Susan in the low voice, not caring if the bear pirate would hear them speak but just ignore them... which would in fact be a good thing and time for them to share the last words before the upcoming death.

"l'm so sorry, Susan... that l couldn't have been more helpful to you."

Susan was almost shocked but mostly confused about this.

"Oh, don't be daft, Otterton. You've been very helpful. Truly." Susan said gently and comfortingly to Otterton.

There was a prief silence between of two otters, until Susan opened her mouth.

"Besides, I'm the one who should have had to say that one, not you." Susan said back, trying to look at to otter over her right shoulder.

Now it was Otterton's turn to be confused.

"You remember the moment when our paths departed?" She asked, getting the nod from Otterton as an answer.

"Yeah. I remember that day well just like the yesterday. We were in the garden… spending some time together… until… until I… I… I…" Otterton hesitated.

"When you surprised me by kissed me to my mouth… with the very unexpected move, even though we two weren't even yet bonded to each other by emotional feelings." Susan continued for Otterton.

Otterton chuckled briefly but heartily at this memory.

"Well, I was… I just… I just… I just did not dare to tell to you my true feelings for you until that moment… I even tried to explain them to you, but you just scolded me, yelled to me and then rushed away from me in confusion, frustration and anger… leaving me behind in confusion, shock… and even heartbroken." Otterton said.

Susan closed her eyes and shaked her head, giggling a little. Then she turned to Otterton as much as she could.

"That's why… I should have to say that I'm sorry." Susan said.

Otterton was again confused.

"But I hurted your feelings back then." Otterton said.

"Well, it just did come to me as a big surprise that… maybe I just didn't react to it properly… just my own pride and my childhood tomboy-side refused me to open to you by that way I should have to." Susan said.

"It took one day when I realized my mistake. Then I though that I hurted also your feelings by overreacting too angrily to you. That left the dirty stain in my mind… as well as my heart."

"So, that's why you've avoided me all of these years… you were under of your own shame for your words and your behavior?" Otterton asked.

"Yes, dear Otterton. Fortunately, I went through my class in king's armada's Naval Academy and when I heard about this voyage and you being one of the founders and even part of this. It offered me the chance to get closer to you to apologize you my bad behaviors… and I hope that you will forgive me."

Emotional smile suddenly appeared to Otterton's face.

"Then why didn't you apologized me already after our reunion?" Otterton asked.

"Well, being in top of my class and being promoted to captain, the busy things, duties and responsibilities always took me away from you. But I was surprised that you did not held any sign of grudge against me… although I've been avoiding you for years." Susan said.

"You do not need anymore apologize from me your bad words and behaviors back then, Susan. They are past and they belongs to the past. I already forgave to you… I just… I just wanted to find you and tell you that I'm sorry for causing so much trouble like this… by hiring the such of crew with the dishonest and dirty side like this." Otterton said, with the himself blaming tone.

"Come on, Otterton dear. This isn't your fault. Who would have known at first sight what they were really planning to?" Susan asked.

"Well, if I had hired a crew much better and with the much more careful eye, this would have never happened. But now I just… I just let all of this mess happen to us. Now our friends are out there starving on the island and they're gonna throw us overboard tied into the anchor once we're far away from the island." Otterton said and sighed deeply.

"Right now l feel myself like such a useless weakling..."

Otterton pulled his "tied" arms from his back and put his paws over his eyes in shame and despair, until he suddenly realized that his hands were free… even the ropes around of him and Susan were loose.

"That's weird, I do not remember to breath inside during of being tied up tighly." Totally confused Otteron said while looking at his paws.

Suddenly, Otterton realized that the ropes around of his wrists were cut loose… by the knife.

Otterton dared to look over his shoulder, noticing that Susan's bounds were also cut loose and Susan held the knife on her right paw.

"Several years in the academy, you pick up a thing or two." Susan simply answered...

...until she sensed Otterton to be about to said something with the loud voice, judging from his highly delighted face and opened mouth ready to say something, to which Susan quickly interrupted by placing her finger in front of her lips and hushed him, reminding with the pointing finger at the bear pirate in the guard next to them... who was too focused to his own doings that he failed to notice the otters freeing themselves from the bounds.

But even though the otters had managed to get free from their bounds... the odds against the larger and stronger, though highly obese, grizzly bear were overwhelmingly against them.

Both the otters were aware that they would not last against the bigger and stronger predator in the physical combat...

...until Susan poked Otterton to have his attention and then pointed with her finger at the pistols hanging in the pirate's "stinky" pants.

10 minutes later

"Ahem, excuse me, you brutish pirate." Otterton said to Vincent.

Vincent burped lazily and then turned back to the prisoners, who were still tied up and sitting next to him.

"Yes, you there. As the doctor, l have a question for you about your health." Otterton said, with the serious tone as Susan witnessed this over of her shoulder.

"ls it that your body is too massive... for your teeny-tiny head with the teeny-tiny brains... or is it that your head is too teeny-tiny... for your big, smelly, sickly full of _FAT_ being body?" Otterton said, with the tone which had touch of mocking tone.

Vincent fingered his " _teeny-tiny_ " head and then looked down to his _very_ fat body.

And with the seconds, the Frizly charged threateningly at the otters, greatly offended and angered about being mocked about his physique and weight.

"THAT WASN'T NICE FrOM YOU, TEENY-TINY OTTER! YOU BETTER TO APOLOGIZE OR ELSE I'M GONNA PUNCH ALL OF YOUR TINY TEETH OUT FROM YOUR MOUTH!" Vincent growled loudly, as he angrily grapped from Otterton's shirt, lifted both otters rougly to their feet and rised his fist up next to his head and pulled it back preparing to punch Otterton's face with the brutal force.

Otterton wrinkled his nose after smelling disgusting scent of the grizzly's fur.

Normally, Otterton would have been nervous and afraid in the front of the bigger predator, which happened to be the bloodthirsty pirate.

But this time, because of his experiences on this voyage, he stayed calm even in the front of the grizzly's threat.

"Yes, l'm sure you will, but before you do, l have one more question." Otterton said, acting like he was nervous and afraid in front of the grizzly.

Suddenly, the ropes that the pirates used to bound Otterton and Susan back to back, fell to the grizzly's feet.

Susan had the whole time held the ropes with her paws behind of the whole scene between Otterton and Vincent, that the grizzly pirate could not see that they were already cut to loose.

Otterton then revealed another secret from behind of his back as he was asking his another question from the enraged Grizzly.

"Are these yours?" Otterton asked after he pulled two pistols, Vincent's own pistols, from behind of his back and aimed one of them to grizzly bear's heart and with another to grizzly's head.

Vincent looked down and spotted the pistols. The angry grizzly then immediately went speechless.

And before the grizzly could react in any another way to the situation, Susan quickly rushed behind of Vincent, grapped his bottle of rum and smashed it to grizzly's head, causing him to fall unconscious.

* * *

Meanwhile...

The situation was getting from bad to worse on the island and the quakes grow stronger and stronger.

The land's ground was now cracking and waving dangerously under of the strong and heavy quakes. The palm trees fell over to the ground like hay cut by a scythe and dangerous rock slides appeared everywhere on island.

Judy, Wilder and Ben fought their way throught Ben's short-cut Jack, White Fang, Jack, Fabienne and Peter right behind them, after they were finally agree to go with them through Ben's short-cut rather than stay behind to get killed either by the quakes, volcano erupt or soon into the island flooding waters.

It wasn't easy, because what closer they had to pass the erupting volcano, the land was quaking and waving far more harder.

Ben led the whole group while Judy and Wilder kept an eye the group from behind to make it sure that none of them was either lost from the trail or left behind.

Judy however was almost left behind of the group as the ground dangerously wave beneath of her horse's feet, greatly bothering her progress and forcing both her and the horse to fight to keep their balance on the waving ground beneath of them... and the falling or unpredictably along with the wavy ground swinging palm trees slowed her down.

She was also caught by the tiny but still deadly rock slide, which rolling boulders hit to the horse's left flank and knocked the horse down. The deadly wounded horse threw the rabbit out of his back and was then trapped under the rocks.

As Judy jumped quickly back on her feet to fight to keep her balance, she turned to her horse... only to see the horse lying broken and suffering on the ground

Judy was both shocked and saddened to see the poor one lying in the ground like this.

And while looking at the horse, Judy hoticed that the horse had even a quite identical features by appearance to her own horse back in home, which nearly caused her to paralyze out of sorrow, thinking her own horse in the place of that dying one.

It hurted her deeply to see the poor thing to suffer.

"Carrots! We have no time for this! Come one!" Wilder yelled to Judy after he had spotted that Judy was left behind and rode back to pick her up.

Judy, still watching the poor suffering horse, left with the heavy heart and with reluctance the horse behind, and with Wilder's help. she climbed to Wilder's horse's back to Wilder's front side.

Then she saw Wilder taking out his pistol and loading it.

"Don't watch this if this hurts you." Wilder warned Judy.

Judy knew what Wilder was about to do to the wounded, trapped and suffering horse and was unable to watch it after Wilder raised his pistol up and aimed it to the horse's head, Judy buried her face to Wilder's jacked in agony to prevent herself from seeing this...

...and then she heard the gunshot.

BANG!

Judy knew that what Wilder just did was the right thing and good for the horse, for the pirate who only kills to steal things by force.

But still, Judy could not look back at the motionless and now-lifeless horse lying behind of them, and she did not even need when Wilder wrapped his comforting arm around of Judy to comfort her, before the fox pirate turned his horse around and encouraged it to run forwards with the double-speed so that they can catch the others... and they left the horse's dead body behind to be buried under the sliding and along the ground rolling boulders.

It took from them ssome time, before they finally arrived to the edge of the west-river of the island where Zoopaniola was sailing.

And after catching the sight of the ship with their eyes, they encouraged their horses to increase the speed into their legs that they would be able to reach next to ship and with the perfect chance to jump to the ship's bow and fixed main mast's riggings.

The problem of it was, that they had not weapons to defend themselves against the remaining pirates onboard.

"Get us near of the edge, Wilder!" Judy shouted to Wilder as loud as she could under of all this loud grumbling around of them.

"Are you nuts, Carrots? Don't you see that the cliff is collapsing down piece by piece under of this quake?" Wilder shouted back, pointing with the finger to the edge of the cliff, which was truly collapsing like the sand castle in the pouring rain, because of the quakes waving the land.

Judy noded to Wilder, but she didn't care.

"I need you to get me near of the ship's mainmast's rigging that I can climb down to the deck and deal with the pirates and Leodore. It's our only hope to get back to the ship before it's two late!" Judy shouted back.

Wilder was still both hesitant and doubtful about this... especially about the fact that Judy was once again putting herself into the life-threatening danger

However, Wilder reluctantly directed his horse near the collapsing edge, keeping an eye of the horse's every running step and trying the keep the horse from slipping from the edge and fall down to their certain deaths.

Meanwhile, on the bridge of Zoopaniola, Leodore was looking to the contents of the treasure chest, unable to turn his eyes from the shiny gold and jewels on the falling tiny boulders, which fell to the bridge. In fact, he did not even cared about the falling boulders or anything else... only about the pouring the gold into his paws.

However, he was suddenly snapped out of this by in the air aachoing familiar voices above of them.

This finally got Leodore's eyes out from the treasure and he took the look to the edges of the collapsing cliffs.

He saw then the horse running the next of the main mast's higher rigging… and then the lion guvernor went into pure shock when he regonized Judy and Wilder on the horse's back.

"THAT BUNNY BRAT AND THAT FOX?! STILL ALIVE?! IMPOSSIBLE!" shocked about this fact, yet from the sight of those two, especially from the sight of Judy, angered lion governor roared before turning to the guards.

"SHOOT THEM! BOTH OF THEM!" Leodore angrily roared.

The guards, however, hesitanted to carry out the such of order.

"Isn't there right about now much more important things to worry about, sir?" The tiger guard asked.

"For example, these falling boulders and the original plan of trying to escape from the island before it collapses to the sea?" The wolf guard asked by his turn, with the nervous look in his face.

These questions only drove Leodore in the insane rage!

"I SAID, SHOOT THEM! SHOOT! SHOOT! SHOOT THEM NOW! SHOOTSHOOTSHOOTSHOOTSHOOTSHOOTSHOOTSHOOT!" Leodore roared, acting like the spoiled child, who wants something so badly but does not get his way.

The guards, even after hesitating a little bit, eventually obeyed Leodore and raised their muskets to upwards, aiming at Judy and Nick opened fire.

Even Leodore himself grabbed to the multiple loaded pistols and in the blind rage the lion governor opened the fire at Judy and Wilder, as they were slowly approaching the main mast's rigging.

Judy and Wilder were caught off the guard when they heard the gunshots coming from bellow Zoopaniola's bridge and the bullets flew with the high speed around of them, narrowly missing them and their horse

"They're shooting us!" Wilder loudly warned Judy.

Judy already knew that, especially as one of the bullets, from Leodore's pistols, narrowly missed her right cheek with the few centimetres... but with luck, he shot did not even scratched her already scarred cheek.

"Get me closer!" Judy yelled to Wilder.

Wilder did so and directed the horse to ride a bit closer the main mast's rigging.

And when they were close enough the end of the rigging that Judy was able to jump for it, Judy slowly climbed on her feet on the horse's back and prepared herself to make the certainly life-threatening leap to the rigging... hoping at the same time that she would not miss the rigging or the ropes hangong beneath of it.

However, as she was about the make her jump, a new bullet, most certainly from Leodore's pistols, hit to Wilder's horses right fore leg, causing the poor animal neigh loudlyin pain and fell over i nthe high speed to the collapsing ground.

The horse also tossed out of surprise screaming Judy and Wilder off its back… and right over the collapsing edge of the cliff to the high fall… to the certain death.

However, Judy was able to catch from the ropes hanging from beneath of the rigging.

However... Wilder wasn't so lucky as the rabbit was.

"Wilder!" Judy screamed in agony after witnessing Wilder still falling down, as she was about to pull herself up on the rigging.

Judy quickly cut some ropes and jumped after Wilder, holding from the loose end of the rope with her another paw while extending her free paw towards Wilder… preparing for the rope getting roughly tight between of the rigging and her own weight.

As the bullets flew around of her when she was falling down after Wilder, the rope suddenly went tight… just in time, because Judy had manage to catch from Wilder's wirst... and both mammals took the thick grip from each others wirsts.

Because the rope had went tight in middle of the free fall down, it unexpectedly swung Judy and Wilder with the rapid speed in the arch around of the port side of the ship, nearly causing them to collide to the wall, before the rope carried them towards the bridge of Zoopaniola, where Leodore and his guards were still firing at them.

"Carrots! What ever you do, do not let go!" Wilder yelled.

Wilder wasn't accustomed with these daredevil and even a life-threatening stunts as the pirate fox unlike Judy had.

Judy had once carried out the daredevil jump from the highest place of her hometown... just for fun... and then she had swung above of the town's streets by ropes, grappling hooks and jumping from the rooftop to another... and all opf that just for fun. Much to Leodore's and her mother's annoyance and her mother's worry.

Judy turned her eyes to Zoopaniola's bridge, where Leodore and his guards were still shooting at them.

And then, Judy got an idea.

"BE PREPARED, WILDER! I'M GONNA LET GO!" Judy warned.

Wilder looked at Judy in shock and confusion, unable to believe his own ears about Judy's words.

"YOU… WHAT?!"

As the swinging rope was pulling them above of the bridge, Judy, against Wilder's protests, let go both from the rope and Wilder's wrist and both of them fell freely towards the ship's bridge and landed, Judy's kicking legs and Wilder's back ahead, to Leodore's faces and the guards.

Judy landed straight to Leodore's faces, delivering to the lion the very hard dpuble-kick with both of his bunny feet and all strength she had to the lion's nose, making the lion grunt loudly from the impact and fall over on his back to the bridge's deck.

Wilder landed on to Leodore's guards, causing them to fall on their back to the deck and hit their heads to the deck, knocking them both out.

Judy quickly rushed to Wilder's side, helped him up on his feet and then grabbed to the helm, trying at the same time to figure the spot from where they would pick the rest of their friends from collapsing land to the ship.

But because of the high and vertical (and collapsing) rock walls, there seemed to be not such of spot, where they can pick the rest of the crew and Ben onboard.

"There have to be some spot to pick them to the ship." Judy said to herself, trying also at the same time to catch them with her eyes from the upper edges of the cliff.

However, Leodore, unlike his guards, was not yet out.

The enraged lion immediately jumped on his feet behind of Judy and Wilder's backs, grabbed to one of his dropped pistol and secretly loaded it.

And then... he aimed with it to backside of Judy's head.

However, Both Judy's and Wilder's sharp sense of hearing catched Leodore's deep and quiet growl in anger and the sound of taking the safety off from the pistol and both of them turned around to see that what was going on… much to their shock.

"Carrots, look out!" Wilder yelled and pushed Judy out of the way before leaping himself out of way as Leodore fired with his pistol.

The bullet narrowly missed Wilder's nose and took the piece off from the helm.

Because of this, ship was priefly out of control and collided to the rocks in the river path's shore.

The rocks scratched the port side of Zoopaniola quite badly from two spots of the side of the ship... but luckily not so fatally to the ship that it could have made holes in below the waterline and slowly sink the Zoopaniola to the river.

And the falling boulders increased the damage to the deck by falling through of the main deck... but luckily not through of the bottom of the ship, which also could have been fatal to Zoopaniola

"These accursed guns are useless!" Leodore growled and threw his pistol overboard and drew his sword out.

"You take control of the ship, I watch your back!" Wilder said as he jumped on his own feet, went protectively between of Judy and Leodore and drew his own sword out... ready to fight the angered lion governor.

Judy did as Wilder told her yo do and jumped back to the helm to direct Zoopaniola away from the rocks and the vertical stone walls of the river before they would cause anymore damage.

Wilder and Leodore attacked at each others swinging their swords at each others, and the fierce duel between the fox pirate and the lion governor erupted.

The sounds of the blades clanging against each others filled the air around on the bridge.

Wilder's fighting style was more like dodging and blocking Leodore's attacks with his sword, and also using his crutch, which he had tied to his back during of the ride back to the ship and had now took it now into his paws, using it as his extra weapon against Leodore's attacks...

...while Leodore's style lied with the heavy attacks with the heavy straight or lateral swings and stab-strikes, of which Wilder did his best to block from reaching both his chest and head as well as to Judy's back.

Leodore fought furiously back, growling like in the feral-like rage...

...but despite having the opponent, who was much more smaller compared by the sizes to the lion, and despite being the cripple with his peg-leg, Wilder used his species natural speed and sly (and quite cheating) movements along with his skills of swordsmanship to evade Leodore's every attack, moving to the lion's unguarded sides before attacking himself at the lion as fiercely by making the quick and smooth swings at the lion.

But with each strike, Wilder only mate the smooth cut to the governor's red jacket, deliberately and narrowly avoiding to make the cut into the lion's skin and flesh.

However, despite doing this for a few times, Wilder never left Judy's back for a long time unprotected and at the mercy of the lion's any moment possible fatal back-stabbing strike he could carry out upon Judy...

...so Wilder quickly returned back to between of Judy and the lion and kept dueling with the lion.

And during of the duel, Wilder clearly saw the lust of greed and bloodthirst in the lion governor's eyes, which was at the moment with one hundred percent identical with the pirates' own lust of greed and blood.

"I wonder that why they ever picked up you as the covernor of Carrots' hometown with the such of lust like that." Wilder said as he and Leodore continued their duel.

"For the lion… you're… such of fraidy-cat! Selfish… greed… treacherous… and now even untrustworthy… than any pirate… ever has been... And with that... even... the worst swordmen... I've ever seen... and fought... in my life." Wilder said, between of either his or Leodore's swings of swords and dodges out of the way of the blades.

Leodore's feral-like rage was only increased by this and he attacked double time more fiercely...

...but he failed to notice that it was right what Wilder wanted him to do.

Fighting in the blind anger, easily lowers the focus and the opponent is thus more easily to be either cheated or even defeated in the duel.

Wilder dodged Leodore's attack, which was supposed to cut Wilder's head off his shoulders by his neck, and after Leodore lost the control of his own sword, Wilder quickly tripped Leodore from behind by placing his crutch behind of his heel, causing the lion governor to loss his balance and fall, yet again, backwards and over on his back to the deck.

"You're one to talk, fox! You who uses the cheating ways to defeat your opponent!" Leodore growled as he crawled back up on his feet.

"The duel to the death is like the game without the fair rules, if that was what did you mean. Or are you too spoiled to see the reality of the fighting?" Wilder said back.

Leodore roared in anger and attacked Wilder once again.

And while Wilder and Leodore kept dueling with each others, Judy was still directing the ship in the helm while searching with her eyes some spot for their friends to get onboard, before the edge of the cliff collapses even more and then it may be too late to get onboard...

...even though her focus was highly disturbed by Wilder's and Leodore's duel and the soud of against each others fiercely clanging swords.

Suddenly, she heard from the main deck that the remaining pirates have been noticed her and Wilder onboard and were now charging with the pistols and swords in their paws to the bridge.

The rhino pirate was the first one to reach up the stairs to the bridge with the huge ax in his hands, which he waved over his head and aimed its huge blade towards Judy in attempt to kill her with it.

Judy, however, saw the incoming blade nick in time and dodged the blade by jumping out of the ax's way, as the blade hit to the ship's helm instead of her, damaging the helm even more.

The rhino then sternly and self-confidently - maybe even a bit arrogantly - gestured his fellow pirates to stay back, as he claimed the rabbit to be his alone, much to his crocodile friend's annoyance, because he was the one who had wanted so bad to fight off that bunny… in order to eat her of course.

The rhino pirate then attacked Judy again, swinging his axe towards the bunny, who was barely even able to evade the rhino's several heavy attacks with the ax.

Captain Flint tried to defend Judy by attacking the rhino's head and tried by pulling from the rhino pirate's ears to draw the massive heavy pirate to backwards... but it was not much use as the rhino grabbed from Captain Flint's tail and almost threw the monkey overboard...

...if Flint had not grabbed from the reiling with his hands nick in time before he completely fell overboard.

Wilder turned around to witness this, but this also allowed Leodore to have the distracted fox caught off guard, which allowed him to deliver the hard kick to his stomach, which sent the fox roughly backwards and nearly fall over to the deck, until Wilder managed to catch the support by leaning against the railing.

And then, Leodore caught Wilder off guard again and swung his sword towards the fox pirate, slashing the cut to Wilder's left arm.

Wilder whimpered loudly in pain, whih caused Wilder to drop his sword and he grabbed with his paw from the area of his wound in his arm, holding it tightly to prevent the bleeding.

Wilder's sudden yelp in pain caused Judy to turn in concern to Wilder, only to see to her horror the fox pirate at the villanous rogue-turned lion governor's mercy.

However, this reckless act took her off guard and thus allowing the rhino pirate to knock her to the nose with his ax's handle's another end.

Judy fell over to the deck, grunting in pain and holding with her tiny paws her bleeding nose.

The rhino pirate then pinned Judy down and placing his massive leg over her body - or more likely trampling with nearly all of the rhino pirate's crushing weight over judy's body, causing the bunny to gasp loudly in pain after the impact of the rhino's leg's weight pinning her painfully against the deck, preventing any attempt of escape from judy.

Judy tried to struggle to get out from beneath of the rhino's leg, but the rhino pirate's weight was in the side of the odds against her.

Leodore then placed his sword's tip to Wilder's throat, threatening him to stay still or else, before he turned to pinned Judy and the rhino pirate with the ax.

"Chop off that bunny brat's head and bring it to me." Leodore said, grinning sadistically, and with the pleasure that at least he was able to rid himself from the horn in his side in the form of Judy Hawkins... with his own way.

"NO!" Wilder yelled in emotional agony, but was halted back by Leodore's sword on his neck.

The rhino pirate obeyed the rogue governor and raised his axe over his head, preparing to chop Judy's head off with one swing of ax.

However...

" ** _AAAAA'AAAA'AAAA!_** " was heard coming from the sails.

Old Ben suddenly appeared to the scene, swinging from from the mast over the bridge by the rope and shouting like somekind hero of the jungle coming to the rescue, and kicked with both of his hind legs Leodore into the rogue governor's faces.

And because the yak's own double-kick was much stronger than Judy's own double-kick, it caused Leodore to fall sharply backwards and eventually the rogue lion fell over the railing, spitting the drop of blood out of his mouth from the kick's impact… Leodore lost his balance in the railing and fell over board.

"Nobody messes with Old Ben's friends!" Ben yelled after Leodore as the yak landed to the ground.

The rhino and the another pirates were quiote surprised of the yak's sudden appearance… which buyed Judy enough time to crawl up on her feet and quickly thinking with her sharp-minded bunny-brains, Judy quickly got an idea to defeat both Leodore and the rest of the pirates.

Jack the Squirrel then jumped on the rhino pirate's head, grabbed from the rhino pirates ears and pulled then backwards, causing the rhino pirate to pull back and bellow in pain, lose the grip from his axe and trieed to reach with his hands from the squirrel on his head.

This act draw the rhino pirate's attention from Judy to the squirrel, allowing Judy to execute her plan against the pirates and Leodore.

Judy then charged towards Leodore, who was still dizzy from Ben's fiery kick to his faces.

Quickly recovering from the wound in his arm and quickly realizing what Judy was about to do, Wilder hurriedly took one of his nooses, crawled to the dizzy lion and quickly tied the noose around of Leodore's leg and tied its another end around of... something heavy in another side of the railing.

And before Leodore managed to realize what was happening to him in the paws of the fox...

...Judy used her bunny legs and all her strength to leap into the long jump from the deck to the same lavel of leodore's head and flew towards Leodore's faces, before the bold bunny delivered the hard double-kick to the rogue lion's faces... causing the lion to lost his balance in the railing and to fell overboard to the water...

...and from Leodore's faces, Judy jumped forward and flew through the air space of the bridge towards the rhino pirate.

Rhino pirate didn't fail to notice Judy flying towards him.

And ignoring the pain in his ears and the squirrel over his head, the rhino tried to strike Judy with his ax.

But the massive pirate missed his target, and before he managed to react, Judy turned her position in the air and landed to Rhino's faces with her legs ahead, delivering to the pirate the double-kick with both of her bunny legs… with all her strengh and so hard as she was able to.

The rhino lost couple of teeth from the impact, which was strong enough to dizzy the massive pirate, and with the help of Jack pulling from the pirates ears to get him to fall back, the rhino pirate collided with the ramming force against Mbaya, who was the next pirate to charge to the bridge.

The impact from the rhino pirate's collide against Mbaya was strong enough to push the elephant pirate backwards and over the other pirates in the stairs.

And then, both the massive pirates leaned too much backwards and were about to fall onto their fellow pirates...

...as the pirates, after realizing this, tried to escape out of the rhino's way by running down the stairs.

However, it was too late from them to act.

Mbaya with the unconscious rhino pirate over his belly fell upon the stairs and over of them like the giant heavy meat ball, which eventually led to it that the stairs weren't able to take so much weight over them and they eventually broke under of the pirates feets and the weight of Mbaya and the rhino pirate... smashing to the deck at the feet of now-destroyed stairs and all the pirates running down the stairs were all burried beneath of Mbaya and the unconscious rhino.

And thanks to Mbaya's and the rhino pirate's mixed weight, they were all trapped and defeated.

They, of course, tried to struggle themselves out from beneath of struggling Mbaya's and unconscious rhino's weight, but they found it a bit difficult than it seemed.

And when some of the pirates they up, they notized Otterton and Susan, and surprisingly to Judy and Wilder, White Fang, Jack, Fabienne and Peter standing before of the pile of the pirates… aiming at the pirates with the loaded pistols with their safeties turned off.

"Game over boys." Otterton said with the smug smile.

And it was now... when the pirates finally saw that the game wwas indeed finally over from them and that the entire mutiny was at the end.

And that they were now in the other side of the gun point...

...leaving them with no other choice than surrender their weapons and themselves to the victorious side.

The surrounded pirates and Leodore's remaining guards were then tied up around of the main mast by Susan's crew and Otterton treated then Judy's bleeding nose and the cut in the Wilder's arm... as well as his scratch in his temple from Grey's pistol.

Wilder was also under of guard of Fabienne and Peter, who were aiming at him with their pistols, for his own part as the mastermind of the entire mutiny against Susan and his crimes of piracy.

"Cap'n! Thank goodness you and your crew arrived to our aid in the nick of time and..." Wilder said relieved as Susan appeared to the deck.

However, Susan looked at the fox pirate with anger, distrust and disgust.

"Save your claptrap for the judge, Wilder!" the Captain rudely interrupted him and turned away from the fox pirate to grab to the helm."

Wilder chuckled nervously, knowing too well that he was in big trouble for what he had done during the failed mutiny and for his act of piracy once we got out of there.

Judy took the look at Wilder with sympathy, knowing this very well herself.

Judy also knew that the court is not always so fair - and far less sympathy - towards those ones guilty of the act of piracy.

And Judy was also aware of the fates waiting for all of those punishments for all those quilty of piracy, either ending up to the lifetime imprisonment to rot in the jails for the rest of the prisoners life or end their final days in the gallows - often gallows - or in the dates with the executioner and his execution ax.

Judy then turned to Ben.

Judy was also a bit surprised from the Yak's sudden but heroical appearance to the scene before she and wilder nearly got themselves killed but narrowly survived, thanks to the yak.

Judy was also surprised to see the rest of the remaining crew with Otterton and Susan, holding the tied pirates with the gunpoint.

"How did you and the rest of the crew get onboard? There was not any spot in the shore from where you would be able to return to the ship." Judy asked with the confused tone from the yak.

"Quite same way how you too." Ben answered, pointing with his finger at the riggings in the mast.

"What about the horses?" Judy asked, reminding Ben about the horses.

Ben wasn't able to answer to that, only immediately took the sad and guilt-feeling expression to his face and turned his head away from the rabbit.

Judy realized that if Ben and the rest of the crew entered to the ship by the same way as she and Wilder did - though not by quite similiar way as they did - Ben was either forced to put down his own horses with the knife or send them away for the very last time - though it was clear that both options would lead to the death of horses due to having not another escape from the island - before jumping to the riggings with the rest.

That probably had been very hard act to Ben, to abandon his half-wilde horses to death to save their own skins.

Before Judy was able to comfort the guilt-feeling yak, they heard the huge thunder-like rumbling and then…

 ** _KABUM!_**

The gigantic plume of smoke raised high to the sky above of the giant flames nearly right next of them.

Jack the Squirrel hurriedly climbed to the main mast to check the reason to the such of thunderous sound, and fast and energetic squirrel didn't stop the climbing, until he was on the highest rigging and right beneath of the flag of Zoongland.

And from there, the squirrel was paralyzed still, as his eyes widened in horror for the sight he saw.

"We're all... dead." The squirrel whispered, before he sudddenly heard Susan's voice coming from down and asking the report from the squirrel that what did he saw.

The squirrel immediately turned to the others to report.

"It's the volcano, captain… she has woken!" Jack yelled.

The entire crew on Zoopaniola's deck and bridge - as well as the captured pirates - gasped in shock after hearing Jack's report.

And this was soon confirmed by what came next after Jack's warning reports.

More and more smaller and bigger boulders started to fall from the edges of the cliff - damaging the ship even more like smashing one of the lanterns behind of the bridge, breaking part of the captain's stateroom's side windows, the railing in the place of the stairs to the bridge and the big one smashing one of the main deck's cannons through of the main deck with its mass and weight.

And even the much bigger stones, gigantic ones, started to detach from the wall and collapsed to the river behind of them.

Also the huge shower of flying fiery lava bombs flied over the ship, hitting with the deadly power to the edges of the cliffs - releasing more falling boulders upon the ship - or to the ground.

But worst of all, the ship was soon eventually followed by the massive flaming pyroclastic flow, which buried and burned everything on its way.

Wind was, however, favorable for Zoopaniola and with the help of the wind - as well as the river's flow - the ship had a long head start from the flow.

However, a few lava bombs flew over the ship's masts.

They burned the holes to the sails, which nearly ruined all the ship's sails, but the worse thing was just ahead of them.

Eventually, the bigger one of the flaming lava bombs hit to the already-injured main mast and snapped it in half - again - making the mast to collapse on the deck.

But most and upper part of the main mast fell this time overboard, while the lower and heavier part of the mast fell over to the starboard side's line of cannons and destroyed most of the ship's starboard side by smashing its deck by pushing with its weight the cannons through the deck to the cannon deck and badly damaged the railing in the process... and the end of the mast destroyed a bit of the ship's bow deck beneath of its weight.

The pirates were all still despite the destruction tied up to what was left from the main mast, narrowly evading the possible loss of lives this time... all except for the Mbaya, who remained beneath of the falling part of the mast as it smashed its way through of the deck to the cannon deck.

Mbaya also smashed his way through of the deck and rolled rapidly towards the brigs on the cannon deck, smashing their bars as well beneath of his weight... partially freeing Vincent in the process, who Otterton and Susan had locked into the brig after gaining upper paw over the bear.

And after loosin gthe main mast and the mosst of the sails... the ship started to slow down despite still strong flow of the river.

But the flow itself, however, started to fade away as well.

Jack, after saving himself from the destruction of the main mast, did quickly the fast check about the status of their situation, before returning to the bridge to report for the captain.

"We have only two sails undamaged left in the bow mast! And with two sails and the flow of the river will carry us with thirty percent from one hundred precent of our normal speed!" Jack reported.

Everyone gasped in shock!

"Thirty percent!" Otterton gasped, turning to face Susan who looked baack at him worriedly.

"That means…we'll never clear the island in time before that pyroclastic fry us."

And after hearing their situation, the pirates immadiately started to panic.

"We're doomed!" One of the tied pirates yelled in panic.

Judy quickly rushed to the reiling of the bridge and looked the pyroclastic flow behind them.

The flaming flow was approaching them rapidly.

And that they were quickly loosing all the distance between of the flow and them.

It would be now only matter of time before the flow could catch up to them.

Judy then turned her head to the bow, and noticed two huge zooztec-made pillar, bigger that their ship, in the both sides of the slowly but certainly around of them widening river.

The pillars, which held the larger ones beneath of it...

...the depth of the river...

...the river's flow's straight direction to forward...

...the strong east-wind...

...and the opening at the end of the river to the open sea on the horizon, behind of the pillars...

...brought all together to Judy's mind the idea and the probably suicidal-plan.

"I got an idea! Does everyone see those pillars straight ahead?" Judy said loudly to the crew, pointing her finger at the pillars.

Everybody nodded as an answer.

"Good! Here's my plan. We have to bring them down! Both of them!" Judy said and jumped off from the bridge.

"What?!" Susan asked, not believing what she was hearing.

"If we can bring even one of those pillars down!" Judy said, rushing to the deck. "It can get us out of here!"

"Pardon me, Judy, but doesn't bringing down the pillar block our way out of here... especially when we have right behind of us a raging inferno!" Otterton shouted hysterically to Judy, referring the mother of all the dangerous moments they had experienced during of this entire voyage.

Everybody looked over their shoulders seeing the massive and deadly fiery cloud of the flaming pyroclastic flow right behind of them and growing even larger as it approached them with every second, spitting the lava bombs to fly everywhere.

"Nope!" Judy grunted, trying to pull the grate out of its place in the main deck.

"After we've sailed pass them, we'll bring one of them down. even both of them if we needs to. And when one or both of them comes down, the large size and mass of the pillars will create the massive wave, which along the flow of this river will push us out of here and give us more time to get out of the deadly flow's way!"

The crew was quite doubtful about Judy's suicidal-plan, but from all of them only Wilder, who had secretly cut his own bonds with his claw and rose back on his feet, had his faith in Judy's plan.

"Susan, really, I-I just don't see how this is even gonna work and…" Otterton said nervously and doubtfully to Susan.

"Listen to the bunny, if we lay our faith into her plan and to her, we might survive from this!" Wilder interrupted Otterton before rushing down the remaining stairs to the bridge and rushing after Judy.

Peter and Fabienne were both surprised seeing Wilder running free towards Judy, before they both turned to look at the spot, where Wilder was supposed to sit tied up… only finding out that now there were only the ropes lying on the deck.

"What do you need, Judy?" Wilder asked after the fox pirate reached to Judy's side.

Judy was still trying to pull the grate off from its place.

"Well, I need gunpowder, godddamned! I need these grates open so we can pull all the remaining gunpowder loaded in the net out of the cargo hold. If we get enough of gunpowder around of those pillars holding the bigger one over them in the right place, it will bring the whole thing down and push us out of here." Judy grunted as she kept pulling the grates upwards.

"I also want all the cannon deck's starboard side's cannons to be loaded and ready to fire the full broadside once we're at the next to the pillar starboard side's to destroy the smaller pillars beneath of it, so that it can increase the wave's power." Judy added.

"But, damn it, if something what I need right now IS SOME HELP, IF ALL OF YOU PLEASE!"

"Alright, just the minute!" Wilder said and turned away from Judy.

Much to Susan's crew's confusion, Wilder rushed to his remaining crew and Leodore's guards and cut the bonds from their hands, freeing them much to their confusion.

"WELL, YOU HEARD THE GIRL, YOUR FUR-BRAINED BILGE-RATS! IF YOU WANT TO GET OUT OF THIS ISLAND ALIVE, YOU'RE GONNA DO EXACTLY WHAT THE BUNNY GIRL SAYS! GOT IT?!" Wilder barked at his remaining pirate crew, including to Vincent and Mbaya emerging out from underdeck.

The idea about being burned in the huge and deadly hot pyroclastic flow wasn't agreeable way to die to the pirates and the guards.

So they quickly jumped on their feet and merging with Susan's remaining crew once more, they all hurriedly get to work.

Pirates, sailors and guards pulled all together all grates off from their places and several of them hurried to the cargo hold to prepare the cargo net to be lifted up from the cargo hold, while some of the pirates loaded the cannons by Judy's orders.

And when the net was prepared, they started to load into the net with all remaining powder kegs what was left in the cargo hold...

However, thanks for Judy and Ben's sabotage with most of the ship's gun powder earlier, there was only eight kegs of powder left in the cargo hold.

"We have no enough powder down here, bunny! Only eight kegs!" Duke reported to Judy on the deck from the cargo hold.

Soooooooo...

"Then load in all oil and the rum we have left from the cargo hold!" Judy responded back.

The pirates immediately stopped doing what they were doing, and with horrified expressions on their faces all of them turned their eyes at Judy, after hearing the bunny's order to load into the net all the rum they had in the cargo hold.

Judy didn't fail to see this...

...and immediately let out the snort out of frustration and the disgust towards the pirate's love towards rum and their apparent refusal attitude to give up from it even though they were all in the life-threatening situation.

"Do you want to get away from this island alive, or do you prefer more to burn into ash only because of your obsessive love towards rum and at the risk of your own lives, you drunkards?! If you do, then QUIT OF NAGGING AND COMPLAINING ABOUT IT AND JUST DO IT!" Judy shouted to the pirates...

...leaving them with no alternate choice, much to their agony, and kept loading the net with all the rum and oil what they had in the carco hold.

After while.

Once the cannons were ready...

...and once the net was full and ready to be pulled up, the pirates started to pull the heavy net by paw out from the cargo hold.

And as the net emerget out from the grate hole and raised above of the main deck, Judy suddenly jumped to the net and remained to hang on it as the net raised even more higher and higher above of the cliff.

But before doing so, Judy had took with her the knife, some oil and lantern, where a candle was burning.

"Carrots, what are you doing?" Wilder asked nervously after he noticed that what Judy just did.

"I'm gonna get this net and explode those kegs at the foot of the pillar." Judy responded to the worried fox pirate.

"You gotta be kidding me! This is now the suicide mission!" Otterton protested.

Wilder was agreed with Otterton, but remained silent and kept his faith on Judy's plan.

"Suicide mission, suicide mission!" Cried Flint on Wilder's shoulders.

Judy's only react to this protest was rolling her eyes.

"If you though that I didn't take it into account, you were wrong, Doc." Judy yelled back with hurry.

Judy then turned to the crew on the ship's deck.

"And I also need all of you to either take down or, if necessary, remove all those remaining sails in the bow mast after the pillars are brought down!" Judy added as she pointed with her finger at the remaining sails in the bow mast.

"What? But how we're supposed to move in the open wwater without the sails?" Otterton asked from Judy in confusion about her plan.

"We can worry about that problem later, doc! I want them to be taken down completely removed, or else the sails will only slow us down when the wave pushes us out of here with the high speed." Judy said back.

When the ship was approaching the pillars - as Susan was carefully getting the ship closer of the port side's pillar - and once the net full of powder kegs, oil and rum barrels was high above of the deck enough.

Judy then turned to Wilder.

"Okay, Wilder. Once I'm off the board, you need to turn the ship to starboard so that the cannons can get the accurate boardside to another pillar's support pillars... and then, no matter what happens to me, don't wait for me but keep the ship headed straight for open sea!" Judy insisted.

Wilder could not help but nod to her as agreement.

Then they heard Ben's voice from the bridge.

"Keep hurry, Juicy! Old Ben senses that we have only two minutes fifty eight seconds 'till the flow catches us!"

Judy noded at Ben and then turned around to stare at Wilder again, straight in the eye.

Wilder of course noticed a little bit of fear in Judy's amethyst eyes, but to his surprise, the bunny wasn't in fact at all scared for herself.

Judy had probably experienced too many life-threatening events in her life and during of this voyage that she had like lost all fear for her own safety and wellbeing, and instead was afraid for the others - except Wilder's crew and Leodore's soldiers - safety and wellbeing.

Wilder stared at Judy's eyes one last time with his own emerald eyes and sighed deeply with concern… for Judy's safety.

Judy then turned away from the fox pirate

"LET'S DO THIS!" Judy bellowed into the air and started to swing the net with her own weight.

Judy kept hurry in this, because fiery pyroclastic wall was now dangerously close and they were right next to the pillar.

With the several hard attempts, Judy managed to get the net to swing in an arc above of the deck.

The net swung at first gently, and then faster and even more faster.

With the final swing, Judy climbed to the rope holding the net and as the net flew over the railing of the ship's port side... and before the net had time to swing to starboard side again, Judy cut the line with her knife and the net with the barrels flew over board towards the pillars.

The net landed far away from gently to the feet of the large pillar's support pillars, and with most of the barrels beneath of the net crashed as they hit to the stone floor beneath of the pillar... and the landing tossed Judy roughly against the ground, and remained for a while lying on the ground.

"CARROTS!" Wilder cried out the voice full of concern for the bunny, fearing that Judy had get herself hurt with her probably still sore arm.

However, Judy crawled slowly back up, much to Wilder's relief, and looked around of her.

The vertical walls in both sides of the river kept collapsing to the river faster and more and more lava bombs flied over the ship and the pillars, as Zoopaniola was sailing away from her and the pillars.

Judy also noticed Wilder staring straight at her from the ship's main deck... and Judy saw that the fox pirate was like about to ordering the ship to be either stopped or slowed down so that they can pick up Judy back to onboard.

"DON'T WAIT FOR ME, WILDER!" Judy shouted back to Wilder.

"GO ALONG WITH THE PLAN AND GO! JUST GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!"

With the deep reluctance to leave Judy behind just like that, Wilder could not help but nod at Judy and turned his eyes away from her to the crew, Susan and Otterton on the deck and bridge.

"WELL, YOU ALL HEARD HER! WE MUST DO OUR OWN PART OF THE PLAN AND PREPARE THE SHIP TO THE UPCOMING GIANT WAVE! SO DON'T JUST STAND THERE LIKE THE HEADLESS CHICKENS BUT GET INTO YOUR POSITIONS AND PREPARE TO TURN THE COURSE OF THIS BLASTED VESSEL TO THE OPEN WATERS BY JUDY'S SIGNAL... RIGHT NOW!" Wilder barked the orders at the crew and Susan, making dramatic motions with his arms.

Captain Susan gave him a slightly surprised look at his tone, but…

"Do as he said, everyone of you! Prepare to launch the full boardside against the support pillars and prepare to take down the sails by Mrs. Hawkins signal, NOW!" Susan ordered the crew, before turning to Otterton.

"Doctor, take the helm and turn to the starboard... then prepare to head us to the open waters."

"Aye, captain." Otterton said as he gestured Peter to stand next to the helm.

Peter lifted his arm up and Otterton jumped on it and took the helm and the control of the ship to his own otter paws.

Some of the pirates and the soldiers hurried on their positions to the cannons and get ready to fire...

...while White Faang, Fabienne and Jack, and some of Wilder's crew, started to climb to the bow mast to get on their positions and prepare themselves to take the remaining sails down, alhtought they could not believe their ears, asking from themselves that same question what Otterton asked from himself a bit earlier.

 _"How we're supposed to move without the sails?"_

"Old Ben senseswe have one minute and fifty eight seconds before we're gonna get the deadly hot shower!" Ben reported.

Judy had meanwhile gathered all remaining powder kegs and rum barrels.

There was less than half of them left, because from all sixty barrels the simple eight were powder kegs and there was seven of them left and from fifty-two rum and oil barrels were left only thirteen-fourteen left.

Judy could not help but only hope that it was enough damage the support pillars under of the bigger one into critical state, which would cause the entire pillar to fall down to the water and cause the massive wave.

And overhearing Ben's report, Judy doubled her efforts to keep hurry.

The work was very hard for her alone, because the barrels were bigger than her and heavy to push and she had to take the cover from the rocks falling from the topside of the pillar

Eventually Judy had managed to push three barrels - one powder keg and two rum barrels covered with the oil - around of each seven pillars on the direction of the open sea, to which the pillar was supposed to fall.

The air around of her started to get even warmer and warmer, as Judy created the line of powder leading to behind of the support pillars, which were more closer to the vertical wall, before she lit the gunpowder into fire with her lantern.

From Zoopaniola's deck, as the ship was ready to open the cannonfire with the full boardside to the supporting pillars of the second pillar, Wilder, Susan, Otterton, Peter and Ben watched from the ship's bridge to Judy's direction with the worry in their faces... and also wwaiting for Judy's signal.

Especially Wilder, who was deeply worried about the bunny, because the pyroclastic flow was almost catching to the pillar.

Suddenly.

"NOW! BRING ANOTHER PILLAR DOWN AND GO!" They heard Judy's weakly echoing voice coming from the pillar.

Though Judy's shout was heard weakly, Wilder, Susan and Otterton understood that Judy had given her signal to the crew to make their move.

"NOW, OTTERTON! TURN THE SHIP TO THE OPEN WATERS!" Susan ordered.

"TURN THE SAILS TO THE GOING DIRECTION OF THE EAST-WIND AND PREPARE TO WRAP THEM TOGETHER!" Otterton ordered Susan's crew members in the bow mast as he started to turn the help to the port side.

"NOW! OPEN FIRE!" Wilder ordered.

Susan's crew's members in the bow mast turned the sails to the going direction of the east-wind as Otterton started to turn the ship's bow towards the open waters.

And the pirate crew in the cannon deck oppened the fire.

The full boardside was fired towards the supporting pillars beneath of the gigantic one.

With the full speed, the cannon balls flew among the supporting pillars... and several of them indeed hit to their targets.

The cannon balls took down at least three supporting pillars, tearing them apart, and tossing with the full speed the some large pieces of the pillars with the full force against the other pillars, causing them to collapse as well beneath of the weight of the gigantic pillar.

And as the east-wind catched to the remaining sails, the ship started to float along with the flow of the river slowly far away from the pillars to evade of getting crushed beneath of the weight of the pillars when they started to collapse down to the water.

Suddenly, Wilder noticed that Judy was actually climbing upwards of collapsing wall along from the topside of pillar hanging lianas, heading to the topside of the collapsing cliffs as fast as she could... and after reaching to there, she disappeared out from the sight.

"CARROTS! WHAT BY THE KRAKEN'S MOUTH YOU'RE DOING?!" Wilder shouted after Judy with the shock and worry for her, but Judy did not answered back to him after she disappeared out from the sight.

Captain Flint on his shoulder was also worried about the bunny's safety.

Following by Judy's plan, as the ship's bow was straight towards the open sea, Wilder's and Susan's creew members in the bow mast started to take down the sails... and the other pirates and Leodore's remaining guardians started to close all hatches leading to inside of the ship, from the cannon hatches to cargo hatches.

Now, when the ship was prepared, they had to wait the much-vaunted big wave Judy's plan had promised.

However, nothing did not happen.

The pillars did not show any sight of startong to tilt towards them.

And Zoopaniola's speed was slowly fading as well ass the river's flow and to the entire crew's horror, pyroclastic flow was soon upon of them.

Its the threatening-look black and flaming clouds of the flow spread to the sky over Zoopaniola, covering the sky upon the ship under of the darkness... as the pyroclastic flow prepared itself to swallow the ship with its crew inside of its flaming clouds and into the lethal heat within the flow's clouds.

"Old Ben senses that we have only fifteen seconds lifetime left!" Old Ben yelled in panic to the crew.

Suddenly, before the pyroclastic flow managed to swallow the pillars, there was huge explosion in the feet of the another pillar, which alarted the entire crew, because their eyes and full attention was locked into the pyroclastic flow, which dark clouds blocked the sunlight.

The explode was then followed by the massive pillar starting slowly but certainly to tilt towards them... as well as did the pillar, which supporting pillars were destroyed with the heavy full boardside.

As the pillar started truly fall freely down, each member of the crew quickly hurried in panic to have the cover from somewhere, because the pillar was apparently about to fall right on them with all of its weight, preparing to crush the ship and them with in between of the water and the falling pillars massive weight in the process.

As the another one was threateningly tilting towards Zoopaniola and was about to fall into the water, the nother pillar seemed to remain to stay still above of its own supporting pillars, despite having its own pillars beneath of ot destroyed wit hthe cannon fire into the critical state, which would have been led to the pillar's full collapse into the water with the another one.

Meaning that the upcoming wave would not be so powerful that it would push the ship far away from the pyroclastic flow.

However, then the massive lava bomb suddenly hit to the another pillar with the high force, which was enough to push the pillar off its supporting pillars and cause it to tilt a bit faster than another into the water and towards Zoopaniola.

As the crew of Zoopaniola braced themselves...

Both massive pillars hit to the water surface and, as Judy had planned.

And as they did, the pillars massive size and the huge mass created the massive and huge wave behind of the ship.

The wave caught the ship and started to puss it with the furious speed towards the open waters.

The wave's impact to the ship also knocked almost everyone over to the deck.

This was very difficult part for Otterton, 'cause as the wave hit to the ship's stern and started to both push it forwards with the high speed and carry it above of it, Otterton tried his best to keep his balance on Peter's arm as well as Peter tried to keep his own balance on the bridge...

...and both the otter and the moose did their best to keep the ship under control above the wave and barely managed to prevent the ship from either being crushed under of the rock slides falling dowwn from the collapsing cliffs, hit to the underwater rocks, or having completely lost the all control over the ship, which would cause the ship to turn sideways over the wave, which would cause the ship to tilt along with the wave's flow direction dangerously canted, and which would eventually lead to ship to turn upside down, with the ship's deck dragged beneath the surface.

One of these underwater rocks indeed scratched Zoopaniola's port side loudly, almost tearing the ship's side open and allowing the sea water to flood inside the cargo hold, which was the last thing the crew wanted to happen to right now.

"Down to the right! The right!" Susan snapped at Otterton as he hurried to keep up with her demands.

"I know! I know! Will you just keep your mouth shut and let me drive?!" Otterton shouted in frustration, effectively silencing Susan, who looked at him surprised.

Despite the fact that wave was double time stronger and faster than what they thought at first, the dark and flaming pyroclastic flow was still right behind of them.

"Old Ben senses that we have far more less than fifteen seconds to get out of here!" Old Ben yelled at the crew.

As the wave was heading to the open waters and the river was expanding in both sides of the ship, the wave pushed Zoopaniola dangerously close to the shores, near of the badly collapsed walls that the bow mast's riggings almost hits to the wall.

Luckily for the ship, the side wave, which flowed from beneath of the ship's bottom, smashed against the wall and pushed itself backwards from the wall and managed to push Zoopaniola far away from the walls before the bow mast's riggings even touched the wall's surface.

The ship was almost out from the river to the open sea and the crew almost started to cheers up.

At least all the pirates did... although the entire life-threatening situation wasn't over yet.

"What about Judy?!" Wilder shouted in worry, still looking at to the topside of the wall and searching the cabin bunny with his eye, hoping to see Judy running in there, although it was clearly impossible for her to jump back onboard as the ship was drifting wit hthe wave far away from the wall the pyroclastic flow was nearly consumed completely this part of the island.

"Over seven seconds, Old Ben senses, is left!" Old Ben yelled in panic as the fiery cloud was so close of them.

Wilder was shocked about the fact of reality... they were about to exit from the itself destroying island and Judy was nowhere to be seen... making it to clear to him that Judy was more obviously caught by the flow and burned to death by the deadly heat within the flow.

"Come on, Carrots!" Wilder whispered, deeply hoping that he was wrong about the latter guess.

"Seven... six...!" Ben started to count the last seconds as the flow was about to reach to their ship's stern.

Suddenly, much to Wilder's shock, when Zoopaniola was about to be pushed out of the river's mouth by the huge and massive wave and when the cliff side next to Zoopaniola blasted into pieces by the huge lava bomb emerging out from the flow...

...Judy suddenly emerged from the cliff in the back of one of the half-wilde horse, which eventually jumped off the cliff towards the ship.

Judy had somehow managed to call one of Ben's half-wild horses to her after climbing on the edge of the cliff... probably imitating Ben's calling sound to catch the horses attention towards her direction.

And after one of them had answered to Judy's call by emerging to her, she had ride on its back next to the cliff side right behind of Zoopaniola (and nearly right in front of the pyroclastic flow) in order to somehow to get back to the ship.

And as Judy had reached to the edge of the cliff, which was the last one block between of her and Zoopaniola...

...Judy had directed the horse to rush towards the edge and urged the mount to make the long jump over the edge, though Judy with heavy heart knew that she was directing the horse to its own death to save herself by getting back to onboard.

Now Judy knew that how Ben actually felt after having either putting down his own horses personally or abandoning them to the death on the sinking island.

"Five... four...!" Ben kept counting as the pyroclastic flow kept reaching them.

However... everything did not go as Judy had planned.

As the blast of the cliff from the hard impact from the lava bomb tossed with the last seconds Judy off the horse's back, sending at the same time the horse to fall over the cliff to its death.

"Three... two...!"

But Judy, who had grabbed from the jungle during of the ride the bunch of lianas and strong wooden branch and formed from them the quick hand-made rope and wooden grappling hook, threw in the air her the liana's another end tied to the wooden hook to the rigging of the bow mast...

"ONE!" Ben counted to the end.

And sudddenly, as the flaming pyroclastic flow was about to swallow Zoopaniola's stern, the deadly flow just suddenly stopped chasing them after the ship had get out of the island... probably because Zoopaniola had by the mere luck reached outside of the deadly flow's range.

And just in time, because the wave was slowly starting to weakening under of the ship.

And as Zoopaniola ran along the weakening wave's side to the smooth sea surface, upon of which the sunlight emerged through of the pyroclastic flow's dark clouds, the ship's sudden movement downwards along the wave caused Judy to be tossed upwards...

...until Judy ended up to swing along the liana above of the ship's bow and bow deck and around of the bow mast.

"WOO-HOO! YEAH! WOW!" Judy screamed as she swung around of the ship's bow mast with the liana like female bunnyrzan.

Judy's scream of victorious joy catched everybody's attention to turn from the pyroclastic flow left behind to Judy in the bow mast.

Wilder was far more than just more relieved and happy to see Judy still alive.

"YOU DONE, IT, BY MY TAIL! HAHAHAA! YOU DID IT, CARROTS!" Wilder loudly exclaimed at Judy as he ran from the port side of Zoopaniola to the starboard side, following Judy with his eyes and waving his paws above of his head.

The liana then swung Judy downwards, turning her going direction straight towards Wilder and Flint.

"YOU DID IT, GIRL, HA HA HA HAAA!" Wilder laughed.

"HIGH-FOUR, WILDER!" Judy called as she approached him from the sky.

As Judy was about to pass Wilder with the swinging liana, both of them lifted their paws upwards and made high-four with their paws to each others, after which the liana swung back to upwards and to another side of the bow mast.

Captain Flint cried loudly in joy on Wilder's shoulder... overly pleased that Judy was still alive.

"Didn't l say that bunny had greatness in her, didn't I?" Wilder exclaimned, brimming with pride.

Wilder wasn't the only one to cheer at Judy.

The remaining crew, all of them, Susan's crew, remaining pirates of Wilder's crew and two remaining leodore's soldiers, cheered up happily for their narrow survival from the certain death and to Judy for what she had done for all of them, even to the pirates.

One the bridge, Otterton and Susan, after Otterton had jumped off Peter's arm, embraced each other without even thinking.

Once they realized what they were doing, they nearly pulled back from each others and stared at each other, but very quickly their surprised faces transformed into happy gazes, as they looked at each others into the eyes.

When the ship was safely back in its balance on the sea surface and far away from the still collapsing Treasure Tropolis, the liana swung around of the bow deck's starboard side towards the main deck of the ship...

...and it was then, when Judy let go of the liana and landed on her feet to the deck.

And then Jack, White Fang, Peter and Fabienne - leodore's soldiers and even the survived pirates - rushed to around of Judy, surrounding her and congratulated her for her heroical actions.

Judy didn't even care that from whom every congratulation came from... either from Susan's crew members or Wilder's pirates.

She was too happy to that her plan to save the ship and the entire crew from the certain death had been successful.

Captain Flint then eagerly jumped to Judy's shouder and started repeatedly kiss Judy's head from every corner of her head, much to Judy's delight.

"Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay Flint! That's enough! Oh sweet cheese and crackers. knock it off! Stop it! That tickles" Judy giggled as she felt Flint's kisses tickling her head and she tried to playfully push the little monkey off from her head.

And then, Susan, Otterton and Ben joined to her... and the crew members - both her own and the pirates as well - make the way for the otters and yak.

"Mrs. Hawkins. I have to say that that was… quite foolhardy and unorthodox, but ludicrously effective and impressive. I'd be proud to recommend you to the ZNA aka Zoongland Naval Academy in the imperial armada of his majesty the king. They could have use for the young woman like you! And because I am well known there, I could help you with that by telling them what you have done during of this voyage" Susan said, quite impressed of Judy's heroical actions.

Judy eyes widened as did her smile after hearing this.

Gaining the chance to join to Zoongland Naval Academy and be part of the imperial armada of his majesty the king!

Judy couldn't help but smile, realizing that maybe her adventures on the seas, as she had always dreamed when she was a kid, weren't yet over... even after this.

"It would be the great honor to me, Captain Susan. And I thank you with that." Judy said, accepting Susan's offer, and leaning her head down as the shown of respect towards the captain of the ship.

From the background, Wilder, with Captain Flint on his shoulder, watched the whole moment with the proud smile on their faces.

They were both deeply so proud of Judy, that it nearly made Wilder's eyes to went teary.

Then Otterton arrived to Judy, the eager expression on his face.

"Judy, my girl! Just wait until your mother hears about this!" Otterton eagerly and joyfully exclaimed, probably welcomed about the opportunity to experience a such of adventure what he had been long dreamed like Judy has.

"But what about we'll skip some the life-threatening parts and keep them as our own little secret from her?" He added, pushing his spectacles back into their proper place on his nose.

Judy chuckled and nodded in agreement.

Judy was aware that her mother would never ever again let her to go to the adventure on the seas if she (Bonnie) finds out that she was many times over nearly lose her life in the hands of pirates and the powers of nature.

Then it was Ben's turn to congratulate Judy, as Otterton backed down next to Susan, wrapping his arms around of her waist, smiling at her.

"Juicy!" Ben cried, "That... was…UNFORGETTABLE! Old Ben knows Juicy doesn't like touching, but get ready for a hug, whatta girl, because Old Ben's gonna hug ya with all powers of earth! Ha ha ha ha!" Ben laughed and wrapped his limbs around Judy.

Then Judy, was was much earlier disgusted of this yak's hugs, touchings and loud behavior, did something unexpected.

She jumped on yak, wrapping her arms around of the yak's neck and hugged him back tighly and playfully laughing.

Judy owed to Ben very much, because mostly without him, they would never have survived from the past events since then her and Ben's first met.

And then, Judy landed on Ben's upwards lifted arm, still looking at the yak with the smile.

"Hey, you hugged Old Ben back," Old Ben stated, a little surprised.

"Finally even someone shows me some respect. sympathy and even some love…" Ben said, because he has lived for decades of his as worthless outcast in the Treasure Island since being marooned there.

This emotional scene was probably too much for yak, cause he seemed like he's gonna cry for this happy moment.

"Oh Old Ben promised himself he wouldn't never cry," Ben sniffled, immediately breaking down into sobs and leaning his head against Judy's.

Judy smiled and patted the yak' back in comfort.

"Does anyone have a tissue?" Ben asked, still sobbing.

And then, they all turned their eyes to the direction of Treasure Tropolis, which was still in the grip of the violent earthquakes and was partially consumed by the pyroclastic flows and the lava rivers from the volcano.

It took from the Treasure Island about over half an hour before the entire ancient island was swallowed into the sea, vanishing from the face of the earth forever...

...and with all evidences about the island and its legends disappearing along the island into the ocean, and all those legends of the legendary pirate captain Flint and his long-lost undiscovered treasure trove, which were finally proved to be true, will be the unresolved legends and mere sailor stories once more.

Well, at least not all evidences.

As Judy paid the look towards the bridge, she saw that there was still standing the one treasure chest she had managed to rescue from the treasure cave and which was stolen from her by Leodore and now-dead Israel Grey.

Judy smiled widely...

...with the realization that the entire voyage maybe wasn't all in vain.

As she still had one goal back home.

* * *

 **Gotta end this chapter right here.**

 **I hope that you enjoyed the chapter.**

 **I inform already to all readers and followers that my story is soon coming to at the end. There is still couple chapters left before my fanfiction of Treasure Tropolis is finally completely finished,**

 **Twentieth and second last chapter** **is on its way and is out soon.**

 **See ya.**


	20. Chapter 20: Wilder and Judy say goodbye

**HELLO AGAIN TO ALL CURRENT AND UPCOMING READERS, FOLLOWERS, AND FANS!**

 **It's time to continue from where we were left on my fanction TREASURE TROPOLIS**

 **Because twentieth and secondly last chapter is now out.**

 **Enjoy of reading.**

* * *

And so, after the voyage's completed (despite the fact that they had only one treasure chest of gold and jewels from Flint's massive long lost and now forever lost treasure,) Zoopaniola started its journey back to the home.

And because there was so few crew members left and the ship was also quite damaged from the adventure on the Treasure Tropolis, they had to at first stop in the next harbor to repair the ship's damages and hire completely a new crew for the journey to the home.

After their escape from the island's complete destruction and sunk to the ocean, Susan had arrested all survived pirates for their quite a considerable list of crimes, including piracy, mutiny, the ship's capture, attempted murder, illegally taking of hostages and so on.

Even their help during of the escape from the island during of the destruction wasn't enough make Susan to grant them the act of grace, because she was beyond of that, but the court back home wasn't... and none of the survived members of Susan's crew didn't protest their captain's decision to keep them locked away during the home trip.

However... except one.

Much to Judy's sorrow, even Wilder was arrested for plotting the mutiny and for the act of piracy, despite the fact that he had saved Judy's life and helped them to escape from the island.

Judy of course tried to protest Wilder's arrest, but Susan had protested back by telling that Wilder has had the bigger part in the entire mutiny and as the pirate captain, as Wilder had himself claimed and acted like one during the mutiny, he was about to face a bigger and much more serious trial back home, to which Susan had no influence.

But unlike Wilder, the rest of the pirates will have fair trial back in the home after they get to there... ending either to the life imprisonment or to be hanged in the gallows in the Town Square.

And because of that, Judy was unable to help Wilder from here on.

But much to Judy's and even his own and Susan's crew's surprise, Wilder did not seemed to protest nor even fight back his arrest.

He willingly surrendered his weapons to his captors, Leodore's two survived guards, who then cuffed him and took him away to the brig.

 **###**

At night, after few days sailing slowly on the seas nearly without the sails after most of them were burned in the island's destruction...

...exhausted Judy was lying in her tiny hammock after earning some time to rest after several long and hard days… as the shifts in the tasks of the ship were doubled because so low number of the crew members.

But even though she was so tired, she just couldn't stop of thinking about Wilder…

...especially their common moments together during of the first months on the voyage and even the moment when Wilder saved her life from the certain death after all of their temporarily developed hostile-relationship since that unfortunate moment in the ship's galley on the day when they arrived to Treasure Tropolis.

That's why, Judy owed to Wilder so much.

That's why, Judy could not sleep very well.

Judy even considered a few options, as well as their rationality, risks and consequences.

She knew that one certain option would not be sensible.

She knew that the certain option might be risky, with the risk to get caught by the guards.

She knew too well the consequences.

But thinking about Wilder getting either to be beheaded or hanged in the gallows surrounded by at the fox pirates death sickly cheering death was torturing her mind.

And that she had the depth to pay for Wilder.

And then...

...Judy finally made in her mind her final decision and jumped off the hammock and headed to the deck while rest of the crew was sleeping.

Peter was by his turn on the watch at the ship's helm.

And knowing that the keys of the brig were at the captain's stateroom...

...as quietly as she was able, Judy sneaked in the night and among of the ship's shadows, heading towards Susan's stateroom, which door was already been blown up during the mutiny on the ship... but luckily for her, it wasn't guarded.

After carefully and quietly entering into, Judy noticed sleeping Otterton and Susan sharing the one bed together and they mumbled and nuzzled each other sleepily.

Judy smiled at the otters, alowing her ears to fall freely against the backside of her head and let silently out the word "Awww".

However, Judy immediately snapped out of it and continued the search of the keys to the brig.

However, after ten minutes of searching for the keys, Judy eventually noticed that the keys were gone.

But the keys weren't the only ones which were gone.

Also the treasure chest, which had been placed to Susan's stateroom for the rest of the home trip, was surprisingly gone!

This got Judy to hurriedly rush out of the stateroom - without interrupting the otters slumber - and hurry to the lower decks, heading towards there where the ship's brigs were located.

Once Judy got to the doors leading to the brig, she noticed that the doors were opened and both Leodore's guards were lying on the floor, knocked out.

Judy then hurried into the room of brigs to check out each brig one by one.

Vincent the Grizzly and the raccoon brothers were locked into one of them.

Finnick and Duke Weaselton were locked into another one.

The female cheetah pirate and the crocodile pirate were locked into the third one.

Mbaya and the rhino pirates were locked into the fourth and special one brig, where they were chained with the multiple chains of the brig in order to keep these two powerful pirates in place and under control due to their massive strength.

And, much to Judy's pleasure in the teasing way, in the secondly last brig was the ex-governor Leodore himself… tied up with the multiple chains and even gagged… because of his angry and loud protest of this.

Thanks to the rope Wilder had tied around of the lion's ankle and around of one of the ship's stern's giant lanterns, Leodore he had got himself to be towed after the ship through of their whole escape from the island's massive self-destruction.

The such of experience was quite wet and slightly painful, but after Leodore was rescued from the water, Leodore haad started to lament his not-so-terrible sufferings and started cry of them like the little baby... which was what no one could last even for five minutes.

The remaining pirates couldn't last even five seconds of Leodore's baby-like unnecessary lament-like nagging and crying over of many things; such like getting his finest clothes and his fine mane to get soaking wet... and losing the treasure into the hands of Susan... and stubbornly and bitterly blamed Judy for all his "sufferings" during the entire voyage.

And Leodore's childish behavior had got the rest of the pirates willingly to surrender themselves to Susan, begging on their knees for themselves to be arrested, in exchange for Susan to order Leodore to be tied up and gagged, much to Leodore's anger.

And Susan willingly fulfilled the pirates demands about Leodore... but she did it in the name of law rather than by the request of the pirates, because Leodore himself was charged for a few but significant serious crimes in the sea law during the voyage.

Such like;

Making the illegal deals and eventually alliancing with the pirates... meaning, guilty of piracy in short.

As well as illegally keeping the innocent lives as hostages, like he had done with Susan and Otterton.

And the most seripus one along the act of piracy... the attempt murder on Susan and Otterton, plus being partially part of attempt murder on Judy.

And because of these crimes, Susan performed the traditional way to mark Leodore as the lawbreaker... by ripping his jacket's sleeve, as the mark of the treason in the imperal Zoongland armada of his majesty the king.

And thus she had of her act shocked ex-governor arrested... tied up and gagged to prevent him to protest this act.

And with this...

While looking at Leodore, who was at the moment like bunch of together wrapped chains in his brig cell, Judy couldn't help but enjoy this very moment by teasing Leodore, who was at the moment nothing without his title of the governor.

"Uncomfortable, huh?" Judy asked mockingly, having only the gagged and muffled growl as answer from Leodore.

The angered lion stared with the murderous fury at the bunny standing right in front of him, in the other side of his brig's bars, right at his fingertips, if it was not these chains holding him still.

Leodore even looked like he was about to stand off from the bench of his brig and charge at Judy, in order to push his clawed paws through of the bars of his brig and wrap them around of the bunny's tiny little neck and squeeze her with the murderous and savage rage to death.

"Miph ifp muph meph mumeph, puph!" Gagged Leodore muffled under of his gag, meaning (This is not yet over, brat!)

This only made Judy to mockingly pretend to be scared of Leodore's unclearly heard threat.

"Excuse me, what? I did not heeeeaar youuuuu." Judy mocked by turning her head around, that her right ear was towards Leodore's direction and raised her left paw next to her ear to hear better, rolling her purple eyes at the same time, like trying to get better clear from Leodore's words.

Sweetly giggling to her own joke, Judy turned her back to Leodore and passed his brig, leaving Leodore, who was now more than just angered at the bunny, trying to desperately get free from the chains while letting the muffled roars out of his mouth.

"Such of pity you ended up like this, Leodore. Because in fact you brought that upon of you by yourself." Judy said for the last time and kept walking, leaving the angered lion behind into his brig.

And then...

Judy finally arrived to the last one brig, only finding out that this brig was empty!

The door was open and the key was in the door's lock!

Judy already guessed that it had to be Captain Flint, the sly monkey, who most certainly stole the keys from Susan's stateroom, allowing Wilder to escape from the brig and knock Leodore's guards out.

Judy also guessed that Wilder was probaply the one who stole the treasure chest from Susan's stateroom and was probably right now making his escape from the ship Before anybody finds out and realizes he's gone.

"Sly fox... and sly monkey." Judy muttered with the grin and hurried back to the deck.

 **###**

And after reaching to the main deck again, Judy spotted that Peter wasn't anymore on the ship's helm... but as she went to the bridge, she found out that someone has knocked Peter out and tied him up to lean against the bridge's mast.

The author of the act was probably none else than Wilder.

And while looking from behind of the bridge's balcony's railing to the main deck of the ship...

...Judy found out that all her guesswork had proved to be correct.

Wilder was on the main deck, quickly preparing in the light of the lantern the long boat to make his escape.

And he had already stole in addition to the boat the small mast and couple sails for his boat's mast... and he had loaded the boat with some food from the ship's galley.

Captain Flint was with him, mumbling impatiently and loudly, causing Wilder to be alarmed.

"Quiet, Flint. You're gonna wake the whole ship." Wilder whispered loudly.

"Okay! Okay! Sorry! Sorry!" Flint whispered loudly.

Judy shook her head, amused of Wilder's attempt act to escape and yet not realizing that he was already caught in the act.

So, Judy decided to surprise the fox pirate from behind.

And while Judy was quietly sneaking her way down the stairs from the bridge to the main deck, Wilder had at the moment already got the long boat ready to take off.

And now, he prepared to lower the ship into the water and then sail away from Zoopaniola, with the treasure chest.

Judy then came out from the shadows, right behind of Wilder, and with the amused smile on her faces, Judy leaned against the main mast (or all of it what was left from the main mast) while staring at Wilder.

"You never quit, don't you?" Judy eventually said to Wilder.

Wilder startled after hearing Judy's sudden voice breaking the silence, and his lowered and against the backside of his head pressed ears jumped upright by surprise.

Wilder, however, managed to nick in time to recognize the speaker as Judy, before Wilder was able to turn around and pull out from the the ship's arsenal stolen pistol from his waist belt.

Nick immediately released his grip from around of the pistol's handle and turned around toi see Judy to lean against what was left from the main mast.

"Ah, Carrots." Wilder laughed nervously.

"I came to the main deck to get some fresh air, until I noticed that someone had left this long boat poorly untied." Wilder said, pretending to be just dismantling the long boat, which was prepared for the departure... yet without the launch.

Judy knew that Wilder was lying all of time to get out from the trouble.

But, however, Judy decided to play along Wilder's came and went to help Wilder to dismantle the boat.

This a bit confused Wilder, though he quickly snapped out of it and kept pretending, though he did not know that had Judy falled the victim to his white lie or what she just playing along with.

While they did so, Wilder peeked over his shoulder, looking at Judy.

The young bunny girl worked so calmly, intently and carefully that he did not need even advice her.

And when the boat was in its rightful place and Wilder was finishing the job by tying the holding rope, he retied the boat with a poorly done knot.

Judy pretended to consider him for a moment, before she reached down to tie a more secure knot, just the way Wilder had taught her to during the voyage.

"Here! That should hold it." Judy said, after finishing the job and then standing back up with Wilder.

"Well, seemingly I taught you too well, Carrots." Wilder chuckled, with the prideful smirk on his face.

Judy then gave to Wilder the look, telling him that he should probably start explaining himself now.

And then, Judy instantly took the look on her face like she was demanding from Wilder the reasonable explonation for what he was trying to do the moment ago, before she caught him in act.

And though she kept her look on her face, she opened her mouth to speak some sense into the fox head.

"Come on, Wilder. You should not to escape the arm of the law like this. You know well yourself that if you flee like this, you'll be hunted down through the seas like a dog, because you are the pirate. Is that what you want?" Judy asked with the serious tone.

Besides, if you voluntarily surrender yourself to the arm of the law and honestly confess your crimes in a trial to the court, who knows if the punishment would be alleviated in your case. Or who knows if you could get even an amnesty and even win your freedom... maybe even the chance to change your life from the piracy to something far more better." Judy added, looking at Wilder like beseechingly.

Wilder nodded at her, touched by her advices for him.

"Yeah, I know, Carrots. And I know that it would be the best way to get away from this, but…" Nick started, until he paused for a moment to think about how he sould explain this as reasonable as possible... in defense for his actions.

"Listen to me, Carrots. I know well what I've done and I do not deny it. And I'm not afraid to face the court in a fair trial... But the thing is... there's no a trial which would have gone well… especially for the "honest" pirates like me. And once our fates are in the court's hands, their judgments may be unpredictable, meaning that every pirate, honest and dishonest one, will eventually face their awful end in the way or another for their crimes.

"And that's why… if you don't mind… we're just trying as long as possible to avoid being locked into the prison. Because... I'm not fond to be locked up into the prison jail, behind of those freedom restraining prison locks and bars in the window holes. But as an pirate, I would never be condemned to a normal and temporary sentence imprisonment or to life imprisonment, but being sentenced to death in gallows is even less encouraging judgement for the pirate than life sentence imprisonment." Wilder confessed, before he turned to Flint on his shoulder.

"And look at my little Flint here. He-he's a free spirit!" Wilder gestured as Flint nuzzled his head against Wilder's cheeck.

Wilder then took the bird cage from nearby into his paws, the big enough for Flint to fit in.

And then, Wilder grabbed to Flint and pretended to be forcing Flint to inside of the cage.

"You see what I meant, Carrots. For example... little Flint here. I've tried a few times to keep him in the cage, but..." Wilder said, as he eventually managed to put Flint inside the cage.

And though Wilder did not locked the cage's door, Flint had already took the saddened look on his faces and acted like he was pleading for mercy in the cage.

"Look at the poor thing, Carrots. I know this too well, because I've often seen him like this before. Being locked up in the cage, either as guilty or innocent... perhaps condemned to life imprisonment by the court... It'd break his heart. In fact, there's no many who even can withstand life in prison." Wilder explained with the pity feeling voice.

"And in my case it's not in any way different, Carrots. You know that I'm not lying to you, don't you?" Wilder asked sheepishly.

Judy knew already that Wilder was merely using Flint to personify himself.

But... in her heart... Judy knew that Wilder was right. There was no trial which would have gone well for the pirates and almost none was able to withstand in prison… aither temporary or life-long... especially when the penalty was death for piracy… and Wilder was a pirate. He of course had the big list of crimes during of this eentire voyage and probably even from the past crimes before the voyage… but at least iduring of this voyage, he had not actually killed anybody.

Judy knew also herself what it feels to be locked away in prison… kind of, 'cause she had been grounded by her mother so many times for her bad behaviors back in home before this whole voyage.

Even trying to sneak up was almost impossible under of her mother's guarding eye when she was grounded for few days or weeks for something as an punishment.

For a moment, Judy just stared at Wilder, as he smiled at Judy sheepishly.

Then the sweet smile grown up to Judy's lips as she still stared at Wilder.

She also remembered her dept she owed to Wilder for saving her life.

"Come on, Wilder. Let's get the boat ready again." Judy eventually said and started to re-prepare the long boat Wilder was preparing.

Wilder sighed happily at this, but also with the deep gratitude that despite all his past crimes and ill treatment towards this sweet and understanding bunny, Judy was willing to let him go.

Wilder watched to the open sea, as the dawn began to shine far in the horizon and from the horizon to the sky above of the sea raising sun's beams started illuminate the night sky, meaning that it was almost morning.

Both Wilder and Judy then untied and re-prepared the long boat, which was with the fox pirate and cabin bunny's help quickly almost ready.

Now they had to lower it to the water.

And then, Wilder then turned to Judy.

"I know that I may ask from you too much, but... what say you ship out with us?" Wilder said happily.

"Ship out with us!" Flint mimicked, jumping to Judy's shoulder and putting the large three cornered hat onto Judy's head, which covered her eyes.

Judy giggled lightly and pushed the hat up her head a bit so that it wasn't blocking her vision.

"Think about it, Carrots. All three of us; Judy Hawkins, Nick John Wilder and famous Captain Flint! Full of ourselves and no ties to anyone! You would be even able to follow your great-great-great-grandfather Flint's footsteps and your own dreams to sail through the Seven Seas seeking for adventures and the chance to see the world… as the Pirate Princess of the Caribbean and rule the Caribbean Seas as the captain Judy Hawkins! Me of course as your First Mate." Wilder finished excitedly.

Judy was able to see in his eyes the obvious expectation that she would accept his offer to leave everything behind and go with this fox.

Judy smiled for this.

This was an offer that gave her the opportunity to live her childhood dream,

Judy already imagined herself as the beautiful "Pirate Princess of the Caribbean."

Imagining herself dressed into blood-red strapless pirate dress with rose petals-like hem and with the black bodice around of her waist, wearing upon her head black velvet pirate wench hat with black lace, red bow and bunch of large emerald-green, ruby-red and diamond-blue plumes. Yet she was in her paws holding from the handle of the beautiful Cutlass with the golden hand-guard

Imagining herself standing against the wind in the bridge of the ship under of her command... with the name of _Merbunny_ with the wooden figurehead, which would to describe her as the beautiful merbunny.

But, however, although Judy didn't want to be rude towards Wilder, she knew that accepting the fox pirate's offer would also require a step towards the life of piracy... which was why Judy had no intention to step down from the honest and rightful side of the law.

Besides, Judy had a different plan for the future.

"You know, Wilder" she started, a bit reluctantly pulling Flint off her head and tickling the monkey playfully.

"When I got on this boat, as the seeker of my childhood dream to sail through the Seven Seas after the adventures, I would've taken you up on that offer in a second…" Judy eventually paused and turned to look at the sunrise far in the horizon.

"But, uh, I met this old fox pirate...and he told me after that incident back in the maelstrom, that I should take the helm and chart my own course... no matter squalls nor setbacks. And he also told me that whatever is my course, I should stick to it." Judy concluded softly.

"And you know what, Wilder... that's exactly what I'm going to do." Judy finished.

Wilder smiled in understanding and respect for her choice and then walked next to her to stare at sunrise.

"And what do you see front of that bow of yours?" Wilder asked.

Judy then continued silently staring at the sunrise, thinking about what she could say.

And then, the sweet smile appeared on her lips, and Judy turned back to Wilder.

"The future for me." She said sweetly.

Wilder chuckled happily.

"I though that you had no future when we first met." Wilder said, reminding Judy of the day when they first met.

"Maybe in that moment, Wilder." Judy confesses before completely turned to him.

"But I have now a new hope for my future. I didn't before, until you came along, Wilder. I was lost. I was stuck in the past. I was the prisoner of myself. But you freed me from that prison, Wilder. You helped me find my way in my life" Judy said gratefully.

Wilder chuckled heartily once again.

"Why... look at you, Carrots, like the beautiful bird who flies on the limitless sky free from the prison of past." Wilder said to Judy.

Both the fox pirate and the cabin bunny then stared at each others with the gentle smiles.

"There's something special in you, Carrots, what is not in other your kind. I will give you that. Even the most beautiful sight of the light of star, beautiful purple gemstones and even the most sharp-minded and bravest sailor are nothing compared to you." Wilder said, as his eyes were getting teary as he looked at Judy's amethyst eyes.

Also Judy's happily smiling expression started to turn into the sad and teary expression on her face, and her ears dropped against the backside of her head, knowing that Wilder's depart will mean that they may never see each other anymore.

Knowing this, Judy jumped unexpectedly towards Wilder and wrapping her arms around his waist tightly... embracing the fox pirate.

With her own eyes tearing uncontrollably, Judy buried her face to Wilder's shirt and silently started to cry.

Although this came to Wilder unexpectedly, yet again, Wilder kneeled down and wrapped his own arms around of the crying bunny and hugged her back, burying the bunny under of his arms and his jacket's sleeves.

Both of them remained like that for quite a while, holding thickly from each others with their paws, even unable to let go of each others for a while.

Especially Judy wasn't able - nor even willing - to let go of the fox pirate, 'cause counting out their hostile rivalry during the mutiny and their time at the island, Wilder had been good friend and like father figure to Judy during the voyage.

"Oh, you bunnies. You're so emotional." Wilder said.

"As the foxes like you, Wilder." Judy said, pulling her head out from Wilder's chest and looking up at him.

Wilder smiled and chuckled at Judy, before breaking the hug between of him and Judy and pulling himself out of the Bunny's grip, clearing his throat.

"Uh, did I just got a bit of flying sea water in my eyes?" Wilder grunted, turning away to wipe off the fresh tears in his eyes.

Also Judy tried to wipe off her own fresh tears in her eyes, but found out that her tears were uncontrollable in the emotional moment like this.

Then she turned to captain Flint.

The monkey had clearly realized that this was goodbye - and knowing that while him and his master escaping from the arm of the law, there would not be the opportunity to see the bunny, who once was a victim of his annoyances during the voyage and before the arrival to the Treasure Tropolis, ever again.

And with this, the monkey broke down into sobs on her shoulders.

Judy wrapped her arms around of the monkey into the hug-like hold, comforting the monkey by looking in the his green eyes.

"Aw, come on, Flint. Hey, I'll see ya 'round, okay?" Judy said to the monkey with the teary eyes.

"See ya 'round, okay?" Flint mimicked her words, before nuzzling his head against Judy's left cheek, and Judy squeezed her arms around of the monkey into the squeeze hug of goodbye.

And after that, the monkey jumped from her shoulders to Wilder's.

And once Flint was on Wilder's shoulder, Wilder turned around and was about to get into the long boat.

Until he suddenly stopped and looked at both Judy and his monkey.

Wilder onsidered this momentarily... before the fox pirate turned to Flint.

"Flint, I got a job for you," The fox pirate announced, staring at Flint who gave asking squeak and gestured to himself.

"You see, 'cause I am not around from now on to do this job, I need you to keep an eye on this "dumb" bunny," he said quietly, repeating the same instructions he had given to monkey in Judy's first day on Zoopaniola.

He glanced over at Judy and Judy looked back at him with a quizzical look.

Giving up from the long-time pet was of course hard choice from Wilder, but he looked it the best that there was even somebody he could trust to watch after Judy and keep her away from the troubles while he himself was gone.

Besides, by doing this, Wilder also leaves for Judy even some memory of him and his advices to guide her in her life.

"Will you do me that as a favor?" Wilder choked out, trying not to break down again.

"Aye, aye, Captain." Captain Flint replied by saluting proudly at Wilder, before the monkey nuzzled his head against the old pirate fox's cheek as goodbye for his former master.

"Aaw." Wilder chuckled and watched as Flint jumped from his shoulder into Judy's arms, wrapping his arms around of Judy's neck and embracing his a new master, while nuzzling her head with his own... and in response, Flint gained from Judy the arm and gentle hug.

With his tearful eyes, Nick looked at both Judy and his former pet.

"Take care of him, Carrots, will you?" Wilder asked while wiping out the new fresh tears in his eyes.

"I will." Judy said as Flint jumped from her arms on the top of her shoulder like he used to do with Wilder, and started to play with Judy's ears, tickling them and playfully causing Judy to giggle sweetly.

Because Flint was only one memory of Wilder what Judy had, Judy promised to take good care of the monkey while Wilder was gone.

And with this, Wilder and Judy lowered the long boat to the level of the Zoopaniola's main deck's railing, so that Wilder was able to climb into the boat.

Judy then was about to lower the boat to the water's surface, until Wilder halted her, seemingly remembered something.

"Oh! I have nearly forgotten. There's one more thing yet, Carrots!" Wilder said.

And just as she had suspected...

Wilder willingly uncovered from the captain's stateroom missing treasure chest from under of the warm blanket's, wrapped sails and the food sacks and lifted it off the boat, over the railing and put it down in front of Judy.

Then he jumped over the railing to the deck one more time, remaining behind of the chest, smiling at Judy.

"You told me once that you only came to this voyage to search for Flint's treasure, So that you could take it with you back to home, so that you could rebuild your and your mother-dear's home me and me boys took down in the first place." Wilder said.

"So…" Wilder said and then pushed the chest with his paws towards Judy.

"These are for you and your dear mother… to rebuild that inn of hers." Wilder said and climbed back into the long boat.

A bit suspicious of this kindness, believing that Wilder was trying to hustle her with the seemingly empty or with the rocks filled chest, Judy opened the chest yo check inside and realized that the treasure was completely untouched by Wilder. Every last piece of gold coins, gemstones, jewelery, gold bars and gold nuggets was still safe in the chest.

Judy was stunned, not by the sight of the treasure, but also by Wilder's kindness... for the pirate.

"Oh, Wilder, That's so sweet from you but… I can't. I can't take it all." Judy suddenly said, closed the chest again and was about to push it back to Wilder, so that Wilder can take it with him while making his escape...

...but not before she had took her bag and poured some gold coins and gemstones into it, as her own share of the treasure, which she assumed to be enough for her and her mother to rebuild their inn and home back to its former clory.

Wilder seemed to be confused, but quickly snapped out of it and leaned against the backside of the chest's lid, prefenting Judy to push it back to him.

"Why not? You said yourself that the treasure is rightfully yours as inheritance from captain Flint himself." Wilder reminded.

"I know, Wilder, but... You told me that you've spent most of your life by searching this treasure, longer than anyone of us has ever done." Judy reminded by her turn.

"Besides, I remember that the certain fox pirate told me once that the treasure is the reason why the certain fox pirate lost his eye and his leg. You also said by yourself to me that you hoped deep from your heart that the life-long dream of finally finding Flint's treasure was best to be worth of your losses."

"So, I'm gonna make sure that your losses were not in vain." Judy said and tried to push the chest forward, only to be halted by Wilder himself.

Wilder sighed, remembering well what he had told to Judy something about his own dreams and the losses he experienced while chasing down his dream… but because of his life-time obsessive dream…

"Have you forgotten that my obsessive dream nearly cost you your own life back there, Carrots." Wilder reminded.

"Your own survival and the fact that you're still alive is all because of the fact that I decided willingly to abandon my obsessive dream for good to save you from the certain death back in the volcano."

"There's still a lots and lots of lost and hidden treasures all over the world, waiting to be discovered than just Flint's now-forever-lost and total myth turned Trove.

"Besides… you need it more than I do." Wilder said and pushed harder the chest back to Judy.

Judy was about to say something back, but Wilder interrupted her before she was able to get a word out of her mouth.

"All of you need it more than even you do, Carrots... despite the fact that the treasure is alone your family's rightful inheritance."

Judy then looked at Wilder, a bit confused about what the fox pirate had just said.

"You do not need more than just enough to rebuild your home and your life."

"Mr. Dr. Otterton needs his own share of the treasure to pay his debts."

"I'm sure that Susan wants her own share of the treasure to fix her ship's damages."

"And also the remaining members of her crew needs their own share as payment for their service on board. Does than make any sense?"

Judy was quite surprised of Wilder's out of nowhere found humility and selflessness... and also his words of wisdom... for the fox pirate.

Judy tried yet to say something back, but quickly realized that she had already lost this argument before it could even begin to.

Then Judy could not help but smile at Wilder and nodded to him in understanding...

...and in response, Wilder smiled back, proud of this little adorable cabin bunny.

And then, as the dawn was getting more and more brighter, Wilder realized that It was time for him to go.

Both Judy and Flint helped Wilder to lower the long boat in the surface of the ocean, and cut off the ropes.

And once Wilder's boat was in the water, it started slowly float away from the ship along with the sea flow.

And as the boat was floating away, Wilder started to prepare his own home made mast and sail in middle of the boat.

Judy and Flint followed Wilder's departure with their eyes from the main deck, and followed his boat's going from the main deck to the bridge... where Judy eventually jumped onto the railing.

"Wilder, Do we ever see each other again?!" Judy yelled after Wilder before he reached further.

"Who knows, Carrots. Let's see what the time and fate have saved for both of us!" Wilder yelled back as he winked his eye at Judy. "Until then, goodbye Carrots!"

Judy looked still at Wilder with already longing but smiling expression on her faces.

"Goodbye then, Wilder. And remember to stay out of trouble, you old scalawag." Judy playfully chuckled.

Wilder lauched heartily at the bunny as the ships departed the further from each other.

"Wh-why! Carrots, my dear girl, there's no problem whence a honest but sly fox pirate like me would not survive!" Wilder teased righ as he released his home made sail and tightened it tight.

The sail then immediately catched pass the ship blowing gust of wind and it took the long boat and Wilder away with it - as the fox pirate took his hat off his head and saluted with it to Judy as goodbye while heartily laughing at his own words -, leaving Judy behind to watch as Wilder departed to the seas, his hearty laughter echoing all the way in the air.

Judy, with the sad but sweetly smiling expression on her face, watched for a long time after Wilder as he and his boat eventually disappeared to the horizon.

Flint then moved to her right shoulder and nuzzled his head against Judy's right cheek in comfort.

And for this, Judy lifted her paw up, grabbed it from the monkey's right cheek and pressed the monkey's head closer against her own head.

And then, they both took the treasure chest back to its place in Susan's stateroom - with the exception of Judy's own share of the treasure in her bag - and then returning to her hammock to get some rest.

And hoping that one day she and Wilder will meet again.

* * *

 **Gotta end this chapter right here.**

 **I hope that you enjoyed the chapter.**

 **And such was the twentieth and penultimate chapter of my soon-finishing fanfiction of Treasure Tropolis.**

 **Twentieth and one... and very last chapter...** **is on its way and is out soon.**

 **See ya.**


	21. Chapter 21: Happy Ending

**Hello to all of you one more time.**

 **It's my fanfiction's, TREASURE TROPOLIS,** **Twentieth one and very last chapter.**

 **And before I let you to enjoy reading, I wanna say thank you, all of you, for liking my story, for following it and for the reviews.**

* * *

 **Aegri Somnia Vana -** I thank you for your review. It really inspired me to continue.

 **syhsnakey** \- My thanks for your review. I really loved to write my story's Judy and Nick with the features in personalities with my own edits.

 **T -** I never expected that somebody actually had waited for this.

 **Hyaku-Legger** \- My greatest thanks.

 **Wustenfuchs** \- My thanks.

 **Sharkfanofthesea** \- My thanks

 **swordslayerfish4** \- How about my story then?

 **Guest with the review from may** **8** \- My thanks.

* * *

 **I'm planning the sequel story for this, but it won't appear so soon. I have many other fanfictions to be finished off.**

 **However...**

 **Enjoy the reading my story's last chapter.**

* * *

After sailing couple months, Zoopaniola finally arrived to the Zootown's harbor.

The ship's a new hired crew worked tiredlessly as they attached Zoopaniola to its correct place among of the dozens of others berths.

And once the ship was attached to its berth, the crew started to unload a ship's cargo to the piers from Zoopaniola's cargo hold.

Immediately after the ship's docking, the harbor's carpenter was called to the scene to check the damages Zoopaniola had suffered during the entire voyage, who later informed to Susan that Zoopaniola will be brough to the town's docking stations to repair the ship's multiple damages.

And during of Zoopaniola's unloading, the McHorn and his guards were called by Susan to onboard to Zoopaniola and take the jailed pirates out of her sight to the town's fortress prison as soon as possible.

He had received all the important information, all the details and all the possible evidence of the crew's mutiny... as well as Leodore's treason against the crown... and the act of piracy from everyone on board of Zoopaniola Mchorn had interpreted as both victims and eyewitnesses... the guards then brought all the cuffed pirates in line, and even Leodore (still gagged), off the ship to the prison wagon waiting on the docks, in which the pirates and Leodore were taken away for the town's fortress' prison to await for a trial.

However, there was only nine pirates captured and to be brough into the prison, though there was at least ten survived pirates jailed, to Susan's surprise and confusion.

And the missing pirate was none else than Nick John Wilder himself.

Peter was said to be the only one who had saw Wilder the last time, as the fox pirate had attacked him on his watch on the ship's helm and knocked him out for the rest of the night. And once he had woke up from the hard knock into his head in the next morning, he had spotted that one of the ship's long boats was missing...

...leaving the entire survived crew of Zoopaniola to believe that the fox pirate had somehow managed to escape from his jail within the night during of their home trip, sneaked to the main deck, knocking Peter out from behind and stolen one of the long boats and escaped with it from the ship.

Afterwards, he had simply disappeared and none of them had no idea where he could have gone.

Escept for one... who had told as a cover story that she had caught the foxin the attempt to escape right before the dawn, but was unable to stop him from escaping before he was already far away from the ship... out of the reach.

And after a news about Zoopaniola's arrival to the town's harbor spread all over the island...

...Bonnie Hawkins, dressed into a red-striped pink dress and wearing beige sun hat upon her head, had hurried into the town after hearing the news and made her way to the town's harbor with "small" bunch of her 275 another children, either as children, teens, babies carried by teen bunnies of family or as young adults with their own wifes and kids.

After reaching to the berth, to where Zoopaniola was attached into and which was filled with dozens of the large and loud mammals, Bonnie adviced her family to stick together and inform to her immediately about the sight of Judy - or even about the sight of her black-tipped ears upright - as she started to look for Judy from among of the mammals with her eyes.

She noticed the white wolf (White Fang) hugging her gray-furred twin-sister and her white little sister's daughters one by one.

She noticed of course the squirrel (Jack) hugging another male squirrel, probably his brother because of his young age.

Bonnie noticed then the snow leopard (Fabienne) hugging elder snow leopards, one male and one female. Probably her parents.

And Bonnie saw finally the moose (Peter) hugging his own wife and kids, before departing with them after White Fang, Jack and Fabienne and their own relatives from the berth.

But there was no any sight of Judy.

"Judy? Judy? Judy?!" Bonnie called her daughter by her name multiple times while walking through of the other large mammals legs with her family.

After searching for Judy for one hour, and having seen so sight of her daughter among of the crew of Zoopaniola...

...Bonnie started to get really worried.

She even started to ask from everyone she passed that were they seen the young 17-years old female bunny with the amethyst eyes and black-tipped ears.

However, nearly every mammal from whom Bonnie desperately asked for help to find Judy, unfortunately and with apologies wasn't able to help...

...or did not wanted to help her, because among of all those mammals from whom Bonnie asked for help, were levealed to be those mammals who did not want to even hear nothing about Judy, due to her annoying and harmful tricks she had done to them during of her childhood and yet in a teen age.

Those mammals rudely told Bonnie to get lost from their sight with the threat of making her to get lost by force, until they were halted back by several dozens of Bonnie's teen and young adult bunny sons, who protectively stood for their mother against the mammals... forcing them with their number to get themselves lost.

And after another hour...

...after several failed attempts to call her daughter by name or uselessly asking for some help to find her daughter...

...Bonnie's concern over her daughter get even worse.

Because Bonnie had not for couple hours found her beloved daughter from the berth, where she was supposed to be after Zoopaniola was docked, and there was not anyone from whom Bonnie could ask the help to find her daughter... Bonnie began slowly fear the worse.

Bonnie even started to went through in her mind many horrible options, that was her Judy killed by the pirates? Sharks? Was she washed off the ship's deck during of hurricane crossed the Caribbean Sea and get lost? Or something worse.

Bonnie even started, with her teary eyes and devastated spirit, to regret that she ever even allowed her hot-headed daughter to go to this foolish voyage.

"Why? Why? Why did I ever let her go to such of voyage?!" Bonnie tearfully asked from herself, almost starting to break down in tears.

"Judy… my little sweet Judy." Bonnie whispered her apparently dead or lost daughter's name in mental agony and tearfully...

...and the rest of her family shared tearfully and pity feeling their mother/grandmother/mother-in-law's sorrow over Judy...

...but they did to comfort Bonnie with their best efforts, although it was not easy with the bunny mother... who felt herself failed in the parenthood with her only one daughter, who has been constantly in trouble and always have dreamed about the adventures on the seas.

Bonnie's family was then about to lead Bonnie away from the harbor, after they did not see a glimpse of her among the crowd until...

Suddenly, someone then landed the tiny soft paw comfortingly on Bonnie's shoulder from behind of her.

Bonnie startled from this sudden act coming from behind of her and by her bunny instincts she hurriedly turned around to see that whose paw it was, which landed on her shoulder from behind.

And so did her children all around of her, as their mother/grandmother/mother-in-law's loud startled gasp caught their attention and they all turned their attentions to Bonnie and to the stranger, whi had just caught Bonnie by surporise from behind.

And then, after Bonnie had completely turned around to see the person face-to-face standing behind of her...

Bonnie was just about to scold the person, who had stood behind of her and surprised so badly, with the stern and extremely annoyed tone of voice for startling the other mammals from behind of their backs as if it was some kind a game with the bad taste and a touch of childish hooliganism...

...until she immediately halted her scolding words back as she saw right front of her faces the very familiar amethyst eyes in the familiar face, with the familiar sweet smile, which she knew to belonging only to one bunny alive.

It was Judy, Judy Hawkins, alive, safe and sound.

"Hi, mom." Judy said sweetly and near-tearfully, while holding with her paw from Bonnie's left shoulder and looking at her mother's eyes, as Bonnie stood in silent and surprised by the shock after recognizing her daughter she believed to be dead/lost to the sea.

And before Bonnie was able to react in any way to the sight of her daughter due to her surporised state, Judy took the opportunity and wrapped her arms around of her mother's neck as she plunged forwards to embrace her mother after being several months departed from each others.

Still a little surprised, but extremely relieved and happy of seeing her daughter Judy still alive, Bonnie immediately wrapped her arms thightly around of her daughter into the tight hug... and not willing to ever again to let go of her daughter.

And after recognizing the bunny standing behind of Bonnie as Judy, the entire bunny family of Hawkins cheered loudly with joy after seeing their big- and little-sister/sister-in-law/niece/aunt again and the entire Hawkins family rushed around of Judy and Bonnie, surrounding the happily reunited mother and daughter into the massive family hug, much to Bonnie's and Judy's delight.

Judy and Bonnie then broke their hug, but they still hold each others by the hands while looking for each others.

"I'm home, mom." Judy said with the gentle smile.

"And you stay in home, young lady. Because your mother is not going to let you go to another adventure on the seas very soon." Bonnie said.

Judy chuckled and hugged her mother yet again.

Bonnie answered to her hug by hugging her as well.

"You do not even need to deny it from me, mother. Because right now, I'm not leaving very soon from home again," She said.

Hearing this, Bonnie thightened her arms around of her to home returned daughter, as the couple of tears escaped from her closed eyes and ran downwards along her cheeck.

"I've missed you so much, Judy." Bonnie whispered motherly into her daughter's ear.

"And I've missed you too, mother." Judy whispered back.

"Aaw!" The entire Hawkins family said in unison, while looking from aside this emotional reunion between of their beloved mother/grandmother/mother-in-law and big- and little-sister/sister-in-law/niece/aunt.

"I've missed you too! I've missed you too!" Flint mimicked Judy's words, as the monkey jumed to Judy's shoulder, much to Bonnie's surprise.

Flint then jumped on Bonnie's shoulder and the first act the monkey did in the first meet with Judy's mother, was to nuzzle his head against hers.

Though Bonnie was a bit surprised about the monkey's sudden appearance to the scene, she quickly get used to the monkey's presence and reacted to Flint's nuzzled by tickling the monkey.

Judy chuckled at this sight playfully.

And then, Flint jumped off from Bonnie's shoulder bak to Judy and Judy grapped the monkey into her arms.

"Mother, and everybody! I would like to introduce to you my new friend and a new family member, Captain Flint."

Everybody around of her gasped loudly after hearing this.

Of course all of them, not only Judy alone, had at some point in their lives heard the stories about the legendary and famous pirate captain Nathaniel Flint, but they never thought of him to be a monkey in Judy's arms!

Judy of course noticed this in her family members's faces and rolled her eyes to their mistaken belief.

"Long story." Was Judy's only response to their dumbfounded or questioning expressions on their faces.

And then showed himself to the bunny family as the handsome-looking yak than to the island marooned naked cuckoo having lost his mind.

"Hi, Juicy!" Ben called her, and getting every rabbit's attention in the Hawkins family in the process.

During of the home trip, Ben had finally took some bath to clean his dirty and smelly fur.

Ben had also finally got his large and dirty fly-filled hair showered, but he had stubbornly refused to have the hair cut for himself.

Ben had also finally got some outfits for himself, because Judy had severely forbidding him to leave the ship at the dock at her home port without any clothes.

The sight would not be beautiful... and it would make her to be ashamed of her yak friend's behalf the rest of her life.

Ben did not seemed to feel it awkward that every body was dumbfoundedly staring at him, with the one question in their minds...

 _"Who's this guy?"_

"So, Juicy, this is the Hawkins family you told to Old Ben during the home trip?" Ben eventually said.

Judy nodded at Ben as the yak walked relaxed through of the bunnies, until the yak arrived next to her and Bonnie.

And once in middle of all these bunies with Judy and Bonnie, Ben kneeled down and extended his hand at a bit hesitanting Bonnie.

"Very nice to meet you, Mrs. Hawkins. Name is Old Ben but to you just Ben." Ben introduced himself, grabbing from Bonnie's paw and shaking it as greetings.

Bonnie could not help but only to hesitatingly nod to the yak.

And after the shaking the paw and hand with the yak, Bonnie turned at Judy, with the expression on her face of demanding some answers of all of this... especially about the presence of the monkey called Captain Flint and Ben's presence.

Judy's entire family, in fact, followed Bonnie's example and everybody's questions asking and answers demanding expressions were locked at Judy, who a bit annoyed and awkwardly looked all around of her.

"Another long story, mother. I'll explain all of this to all of you later. In fact, I have a really long story to tell you." Judy said to her entire family.

But a first, I have something to show to all you, who probably still believes my voyage to be only wasted trip. Especially you, mother. Judy said, before she gestured Flint to climb off her arms to top of her shoulder, so that she would be able to take the fat bag from hanging on her back.

And after ensuring that no one, except the massive family of bunnies, one monkey and one yak, was trying to peep their doings, Judy secretly opened her bag and showed its content at first to her mother.

At Judy's suggestion, Bonnie took at first the look to inside of Judy's bag... and was immediately surprised, nearly in the edge to faint out of sudden surprise, after finding out that Judy's bag was full of gold coins, gold nuggets and gold bars, variety colored and sized gemstones. Among the gold and precious stones was also a variety of jewelry, such like zooztec-made rings, necklaces, bracelets, bunny-sized golden bunny-masks and zooztec grows inlaid with the gemstones...

All members of the Hawkins family peepe into the bag, leaving the amazed expression to every family member's faces after seeing the treasures in the bag.

All of them were once part of legendary pirate Captain Flint's famous trove.

"I think that we have work to do." Judy eventually said proudfully to her family, as she kept showing to her family her own share from the treasure... which she believed to be enough to pay for the rebuilding of the Bunnyburrow inn into its former glory once more.

 **###**

 **Nine months later**

With the help of White Fang, Peter, Fabienne, Jack, some of their friends, Otters, Ben and dozens and dozens of her young men or adult brothers, sisters, nephews and nieces, sister and sister's sons and daughters from Hawkins family, Judy's family had started with the help of Judy's share of the treasure to rebuild the Bunnyburrow inn to its former glory.

Also the new governor of the Zootown, the lioness named Sarabi, who had replaced Leodore's position and title as this town's governor after he got imprisoned for his crimes, was willing to help the bunnies and their friends to rebuild what was destroyed by the pirates about less than one year ago.

And after nine months of rebuilding, the Bunnyburrow inn was finally rebuild to its former glory, except that the error was that it was this time over two times bigger than what it was back then before all of this.

The inn's backsheet was otherwise similar like the old one before it was burned down... but this time it had another house on top of it and now it had much more... maybe even more than enough... room space for the entire bunny Hawkins family and numerous friends to live.

When the reconstruction had been carried out and all those who had participated in the reconstruction of the inn and were at the moment preparing the Bunnyburrow's Inn's re-opening ceremony, Mr. Otterton decided to perpetuate the Bunnyburrow's inn's Grand Opening Ceremony for the first time in months after it was burned down.

And so, Mr. Otterton hired an skilled pig artist to paint a painting about the moment Grand Opening Ceremony and the group painting of all those members of Hawkins family and Susan's crew members, who had involved into the inn's re-building.

Also some Inn's old visitors, who had gladly helped Hawkins family to rebuild the inn, were also perpetuated into the artist's group painting.

It did not took from the pig artist long, though the couple hours, to finish his group painting about the Bunnyburrow Inn's Grand Opening Ceremony and the painting of all those who had participated in the reconstruction.

And when the Bunnyburrow Inn's Grand Opening Ceremony began, Mrs. Bonnie Hawkins was the only one of all of the mammals in the presence, who was granted the honor to cut the red ribbon in front of the Bunnyburrow Inn's doors in honor of the completion of the inn's reconstruction and opening ceremony...

...and especially in honor of Bonnie's beloved daughter Judy Hawkins, who was at the moment training in Zoongland Naval Academy to be one day officially part of the imperal armada of his majesty the king.

Before Judy was accepted to the academy with the captain Susan's help and before she joined the academy to be trained as Zoongland's navy's soldier, and maybe even one day an high-ranking officer in Zoongland's armada for several following months away from home again, she had spend first two-three months with her family and her friends by participating in the reconstruction of Bunnyburrow inn so far as she was able.

And, Judy had also spend time with her dozens and dozens of nephews, nieces, sister's sons and sister's daughters by telling them every night about her the greatest adventure of her life while searching for the legendary pirate captain Nathaniel Flint's legendary long-lost treasure... from the very first moment, when she found the map and to the end of her home trip.

Her storytelling time also attracted even young adult and fully adult family members to gather around Judy to listen her story.

Judy also shoved to her nephews, nieces, sister's sons and sister's daughters the Captain Flint's logbook - which she had saved from the destruction by eventually taking it into her possession from Flint's skeletal remains back in his treasure trove - as an last evidence about Captain Flint, from which she read Flint's a legendary life story to her nephews, nieces, sister's sons and sister's daughters... even to entire Hawkins family...

...and while reading, she also revealed to her family Natahniel Flint's real name, Nathaniel Hawkins, and all of theirs own family roots associated with the legendary pirate as well as Flint's last testament to his future generations in between of the pages of his logbook... and his last statement that his whole treasure belonged to the family of Hawkins.

While the kids were amazed of this, as well as some in young adulthood members of Hawkins family, majority of the entire family interpreted this only merely the sailor story, which they believed Judy having invented during of her time at the sea.

However, Judy didn't care about that. She had herself found out the trust and she was okay with it.

And once the ribbon was cut in half, all the mammals in the presence cheered up for their long-lasted but eventual completion of the Bunnyburrrow inn's reconstruction, and ended up to clab their paws and hands for Mrs. Bonnie Hawkins... as well as some sailors raised their wooden beer mug into the air in honor of the successful opening ceremony of the re-build Bunnyburrow inn.

 **Later on that night**

And, on that night... because the completion of the inn's reconstruction had happened to end to that day when Judy's training in Zoongland Naval Academy had finally come to its end and that Judy was about to return back to home for graduation ceremony, which was by her request about to carry out in her re-build home, Bonnie, dressed into the beautiful purple party dress, had decided to arrange a big parties in the Bunnyburrow inn... one more time in honor of the completion of the inn's reconstruction... but mostly in the honor of her little Judy's return from Academy.

The entire Hawkins family, as well as all the family friends and all the old visitors were invited to the party.

Though both Judy and Bonnie had spend most of Judy's share of the treasure to the tools and building needs to rebuild their inn and home back to its former glory, they still had enough money left over to buy some cozy interior for their home and the some furniture for the inn itself...

...as well as the finest festive foods full of the tables in the main room of the Inn.

And they were such of fantastic festivals that have not been seen for a long time in the family of Hawkins.

The air space of the main room was filled by the happy laughter and conversation between of the visitors, as Susan's crew members were telling to their families and to their friends and other visitors about their adventure to the Treasure Tropolis... which they had promised to Judy to save only for the day when she was about to graduate from the academy.

Ben, who was now living and working as cook in Bunnyburrow inn, was at the moment in the main room of the of the inn serving the visitors, especially to the bunny girls, by bringing for them out of the kitchen the extremely tasteful carrot cakes.

Ben then paid the visit with Otterton and Susan, who were also took the part of this celebration.

Captain Susan herself had dressed into her the finest high-ranking naval officer's red-golden uniform with the black tricorn officer hat with the white plumes. She had said to have used it on her in the past, during of her own graduation ceremony from the Zoongland Naval Academy.

Mr. Otterton had also dressed into his finest clothes he had bought with his own share about the treasure.

The otters had more than just happy smile on their faces, but not only because of these happy festivals... but because of the things they were holding in their arms during the whole celebrations.

Ben looked down at their arms, and much to his amazement and joy, Ben realized that Susan and Otterton had brough the little baby otters into the celebrations.

And these little ones were not any baby otters, but they were Otterton's and Susan's own a few months old baby otters.

This revealed that very soon as Zoopaniola had arrived back to Zoontown's harbor, both Otterton and Susan had started to date with each others first time for the years since their separation.

And after one or couple month of dating, Otterton had eventually asked Susan to marry him with a golden wedding ring, in which was a pure white diamond from his own share of the treasure, which he has ordered goldsmith to make for Susan as soon as he had paid all his debts.

Susan was more than willing to accept Otterton's proposal, and these two love-bird otters had got married, which they had arranged with their own share about the treasure... and to which the Hawkins family, especially Bonnie and Judy, had been invited as a guest of honor.

And shortly after they got married, Otterton had bought a huge and beautiful mansion with the remaining of his share of the treasure from the Zootown, gifting his old house for Judy and Bonnie for while until their own Bunnyburrow home and Inn was once again re-build back into its former glory.

And shortly after that, Susan eventually got pregnant to Otterton and a few months later, she gave birth to three adorable little female otters, whose looked just like their mother... as welll as one boy otter, who strongly resembled his father.

Otterton held three female otters on his arms while Susan held in her arms their son, removing the hood over of his head and giving her son the motherly kiss to head.

Ben was so touched after he saw the little baby otter boy letting out the adorable yawn, before the little sweetheart opened his eyes.

"Awww... let Old Uncle Ben to look at you... awww, you four are so adorable, tui, tui, tui, you little ones. Old Ben has not seen anything so adorable in decades like the little sweet babies who bear similarity to their parents." Old Ben said as he playfully tickled Otterton's girl babies.

Suddenly, the inn's doors were pushed open and the handful of town's soldiers stepped inside of the main room pof the inn.

The soldiers arrived so surprisingly and unexpectedly that their arrival alarmed everyone in the room... especially the Hawkins family.

Much to Bonnie's shock, the entrance of these soldiers seemed too familiar to her.

Because always when the inn's doors were pushed open like that by the guards, the guards - plus Leodore with them and with angered look in his faces in every time - were most likely returning for hooliganism arrested Judy to her and were about to scold her for her daughter's hooliganism in the town.

"Oh, please! Not again, Judy! What have you done now?" Bonnie whispered to herself deeply worrying about the soon-revealing fact that was Judy once again fell under such of hooliganism behaviors... and now in the Zoongland Naval Academy, where they had their own harsh punishments for irresponsible and disobedient ones...

...just like Judy was back then before all of this.

But, however, much to Bonnie's and everybody's shock, relief and joy...

The soldiers made away open for the Governor Sarabi, who had dressed into a solemn, golden-brown and strapless dress, which was decorated with african symbols of nature. The lioness wwith the gentle smile on her faces stepped inside of the inn with the intention to join the party, and alongside with her was Judy Hawkins herself...

...and the young doe had dressed into the finests blue uniform of the high-ranking naval officer of Armada of his majesty the king.

Everybody in the main room started to clab their paws and hands as Sarabi and Judy walked in the middle of the main room.

Half way through the walk, Judy was about to pass her mother, until the young doe decided to stop for briefly and meet her mother face to face.

Both of them were unable to say a word to each others.

However, Bonnie's eyes went teary as she looked at her handsomely dressed daughter into her amethyst eyes.

And then, Bonnie took gently with her paws from her daughter's cheeks, pulled her a bit downwards to her and placed the kiss to her daughter's forehead.

"Awww..." Ben said, touched by this mother and daughter moment.

"Mom, not in the front of the crowd!" Judy complained a little bit embarrassed, but Bonnie didn't care.

"Sorry sweetie, I know that that feels a little embarrassing you in a public place..." Bonnie said as she let go of Judy's cheeks.

"But I wanted to my daughter to know that after everything you have done for our entire family and to yourself, your mother is so, so, so proud of her... more prouder of her daughter than ever before." Bonnie proudly and with the teary smile declared to her daughter.

And after Judy and Sarabi hand reached to the middle of the main room, governor's guards handed to Sarabi the golden badge of the officers of Armada of his majesty the king with the white star - which happened to be the badge, which was usually granted only for the most high-levelled cadets of the academy.

Amazed of this, Judy took her straight and disciplined position as Sarabi, with the prideful smile, placed the badge on Judy's chest.

"My congratulations, Judy Hawkins. You have done well and successfully completed your training at the Zoogland Naval academy in imperial armada of his majesty the king. We have considered twice your hard working and your every performance in each academy's a lot demanding and challenging training program. And with your best ratings, we have come to the conclusion, it is an honor and pleasure for me to inform all the guest in the presence, that I proudly welcome you, Judy Hawkins, as first and high-ranking bunny officer, into armada of his majesty the king. My congratulations, yet again, dear one." Sarabi declared proudly to all in the presence.

Then a loud cheerings from the guests and Hawkins family members took over the air space of the main room, before they were followed by the hundreds of congratulating clappings of paws and hands, during of which, Sarabi and Judy shook their paws with each others, while the imperal soldiers around of Sarabi saluted to their a new high-ranking naval officer.

Judy then turned to look at her cheering and clapping family members with the pride… and from all of them, her mother was more than only just proud of her daughter.

Bonnie smiled proudly at Judy, and Judy smiled sweetly back to her mother.

Judy also looked around of her and smiled to the reality.

She was no longer hated and undisciplined hooligan and a walking disaster she once was.

She was completely mentally and physically changed and different bunny...

...and she was even no longer mentally burdened by the sudden departure of her own father, now when she either knew or guessed her father's reason to it.

She was now in a new high-ranking position in Zoongland's imperal armada of his majesty the king.

Her mother was no longer burdened by the everyday's difficulties, money problems nor her own past-hooliganism.

And the best of all... All things messed by her past hooliganism and the burdening everyday difficulties were now fixed and the life was smiling to the Hawkins family once more.

These things - to become much more better person from reckless hooligan and wanting to redeem herself in her mother's eyes by setting the things right - were the ones of what Judy was after since she found the mysterious map which led to the Treasure Tropolis.

 **###**

 **One Week Later**

One week later, there was about to happen the musical concert performance in Zootown's square, to where entire Zootown's population gathered together.

And there, on the stony platform surrounded by the hawaiian torches, was standing eight slender and beautiful tigress fire-dancers and the band of the tiger musicians.

And with them, was standing the super beautiful, young and slender golden-furred Hawaiian girl named Gazelle, dressed into red Hawaiian hula-dancing dress.

She was a moving concert company in the entire area of the Caribbean sea... and now, she had ended to this seaport to performance to carry out one of her famous musical performances.

And once the day turned into the bright night and nearly every mammal of this entire seaport had gathered to the square.

And when the music started, the tigress fire-dancers started along with the music's rhythm to performance their fire-danger skills by twirling couple of long wooden stick with their flaming ends in their paws... either one in each paw or both sticks at the same time in front of them.

 ** _Oh oh oh oh_**

 ** _Oh oh oh oh_**

"Good evening, Zootown." Gazelle greeted to the cheering crowd.

 ** _Oh oh oh oh_**

 ** _Oh oh oh oh_**

"Come on, everybody. Put your paws up!" Gazelle suggested.

Following this, the entire townpeople, especially the large number of bunnies in front of the corwd, cheered at Gazelle as she started to dance in middle of the platform in the middle of tigress fire-dangers who started to follow Gazelle's dancing rhythm, despite performing their fire-dancing and their skills with the use of the torches.

And then, Gazelle started to both sing and dance with hula-style under the bright night and in the middle of her tigress fire-dancers.

 ** _I started being a loser_**

 ** _And it was not a wonder_**

 ** _I hardly even believed the life may smile at me_**

 ** _But how did things turn_**

 ** _We'll tell you that soon_**

 ** _And that's why we're here dancing all under the moon_**

 ** _Hold on to your dream_**

 ** _if you even have one such_**

 ** _You've to work for it, i_** ** _f it means to you so much_**

 ** _As I did so_**

 ** _Take for yourself your very own course_**

 ** _And let it lead you to your golden future_**

 ** _Don't ever be afraid though you have to…_**

 ** _Face some pirates, arr!_**

 ** _Until the vicious maelstrom_**

 ** _Face them with the gourage_**

 ** _Never give up for cowardice_**

 ** _Or else you will never become the man_**

 ** _Oh oh oh oh_**

 ** _Follow your dreams_**

 ** _Oh oh oh oh_**

 ** _Sail on the seas_**

 ** _Oh oh oh oh_**

 ** _Find all those riches_**

 ** _Oh oh oh oh_**

During of this concert performance, Bonnie went through her entire family to see if every member of her family were in one place.

However, she soon realized that one was missing, who was none else thyan Judy herself.

Believing that she had either passed her without even noticing her, Bonnie searched with her eyes her daughter from among of the rest of her family, but Judy was nowhere to be seen among her family, much to Bonnie's confusion.

"Where that young lady now went?" Bonnie asked from herself...

...before she turned back to Gazelle, who had paused her song for a minute, but not her dancing.

And neither were the tigress.

"Now everybody! Let's greeted to the platform our little reformed adventurer and creator of this song…" Gazelle informed...

...as four of her fire-dancers suddenly put their torches down and gathered together to one place, where they poured majority of their their hula-dresses skirts with their paws in the middle of them.

"...JUDY HAWKINS." Gazelle declared, which was followed by the tigress dancers to pull their hula-dresses back and reveal JUDY HAWKINS appearing out of nowhere to the place, where was a moment ago empty air before the fire-dancers and poured most of their together in middle of them.

In fact, after her graduation ceremony, Judy was the one who somehow asked Gazelle to perform her next concert opportunity tonight in Town square... with the song she had herself written for Gazelle to perform in tonight's opportunity... using her former hooligan self, her adventure and her a new redeemed self as the keynote for her song.

The cheering, especially among of bunnies and Judy's friends (Ben, Flint, Otterton, Susan and her remaining crew members from the voyage,) started to get louder as Judy appeared out of nowhere to the platform, dressed into the similar Hawaiian dancer's hula-outfit as Gazelle.

With the only exception that her hula-dress was even golden and as shiny as Gazelle's own.

Judy had even the golden flowed behind of her left ear and he has the golden hawaiian lei hanging on her neck.

Judy curtsy to the crowd, as Gazelle started her speech.

"As some of you already know, our little adventurer bunny, who had just redeemed herself from her hooliganism self in front of the entire townpeople, claims that she had found on her greatest adventure on the sea the legendary pirate, Captain Nathaniel Flint's famous, legendary and long-lost treasure with the riches beyond of the imagination. Most of you in the crowd must say, "yeah, right" with disbelief. But the stories about those riches beyond the imagination were after all truth. There's not much evidence left about those riches existence, but the treasure is the main reason why Judy Hawkins and her mother's down burned Bunnyburrow Inn is standing once again in its former glory, but now only two times bigger and more princely than what it was before. So, let's everybody welcome Judy Hawkins to sing and dance with me on my dance platform. Now… Everybody cheer! Everybody dance! Everybody sing!" Gazelle declared.

All bunnies and most of other mammals cheered up for Judy and the mammals started dance around of the platform.

Judy also started to dance with hula-style alongside Gazelle on the platform, following Gazelle's rhythm, and sing the song what Gazelle was singing few minutes ago.

 ** _I went in search of riches_**

 ** _Far, far, far behind of sea miles_**

 ** _I found it but also something more precious_**

 ** _It's not all world's gold_**

 ** _Nor even colored gemstones_**

 ** _But something filled with love in everyone's chest_**

Judy and Gazelle then started to sing the same song… together, while dancing... together

 ** _Hold on to your dream_**

 ** _if you even have one such_**

 ** _You've to work for it, i_** ** _f it means to you so much_**

 ** _As I did so_**

 ** _Take yourself your own course_**

 ** _And let it lead you to your golden future_**

 ** _Don't ever be afraid though you have to…_**

 ** _Face some pirates, arr!_**

 ** _Until the vicious maelstrom_**

 ** _Face them with the gourage_**

 ** _Never give up for cowardice_**

 ** _Or else you will never become the man_**

 ** _Believe in your dreams and they'll always come true_**

 ** _Believe in my words and you'll see it for sure_**

 ** _Every word is true_**

 ** _Oh oh oh oh_**

 ** _Follow your dreams_**

 ** _Oh oh oh oh_**

 ** _Sail on the seas_**

 ** _Oh oh oh oh_**

 ** _Find all those riches_**

 ** _Oh oh oh oh_**

"Every bunny dance with me, come on!" Judy shouted, smilling at the crowd.

Suddenly, some of her big and little brothers and sisters, as well as some of her nephews, nieces, sister's sons and sister's daughters, jumped on the platform to happily join her dance.

So did even her mother, much to Judy's surprise but was quickly okay with it, as Bonnie stood next to her daughter and began to dance with her.

And so did Otterton and Susan (after leaving their children under Flint's guard) Ben, Fabienne, Peter, Jack, White Fang with their wifes (And White Fang's husband), children, brothers and parents. All of them were more than just willing to dance alongside Judy and Gazelle on the platform.

And all of them kept dancing and singing all together.

 ** _Believe in your dreams and they'll always come true_**

 ** _Believe in my words and you'll see it for sure_**

 ** _Every word is true_**

However, not all in the crowd enjoyed of following this performance.

"BOO! BOO! YOUR DANCING AND SONG IS SOOOO LAME! GO HOME! ALL OF YOU! ESPECIALLY YOU, YOU ACCURSED BUNNY BRAT! GO HOME! BOO! BOO!" Leodore growled loudly from his prison wagons's window-hole with the bars, much to everyone's in the crowd annoyance.

Even the big SHHH from everybody near of Leodore's prison wagons targeted at him wasn't helpful, because Leodore stubbornly ignored all of it and kept doing his loud and annoying protest against Judy's and Gazelle's common performance.

Suddenly, the same old tiger sailor Claw had enough of this and threw with his full force his bottle of rum towards to lion's nose and the bottle was shattered against the wagons window-holes bars, throwing the rum to Leodore's eyes and the sharp pieces of the glass bottle to his faces.

Leodore roared in pain, after feeling the poignant rum in his eyes and the sharp pieces of glass slicing the small wounds to his nose.

"SHUT UP BACK THERE!" Claw growled to the lion before turning back to watch and enjoy Judy and her family's and friends, Gazelle and everyone's dance.

As they all kept still singing the song.

 ** _Oh oh oh oh_**

 ** _Follow your dreams_**

 ** _Oh oh oh oh_**

 ** _Sail on the seas_**

 ** _Oh oh oh oh_**

 ** _Find all those riches_**

 ** _Oh oh oh oh_**

Judy and Gazelle then went still dancing very next of each other, while the fire-dancing tigress eventually stopped their dance and half of them surrounded both of them from every corner, only letting the crowd before of all of them to see them to finish their song.

And before the last lines of their song, two of them lifted both Judy and Gazelle on their arms from the platform.

Gazelle was simply sitting on the tigress biceps, and the tigress seemed to have no trouble keeping her arm up while Gazelle was sitting on it, due to the fact, that Gazelle happened to be the light as feather.

And same with Judy, as she was simply standing on the arm of another tigress fire-dancer.

And they were both held in the air on the level that their heads were on the same level with each others.

And then they finished their song with the very last line... which they sang together.

 ** _Follow your dreams…_**

The cheering just grow louder among the crowd up to the bright blue night sky filled with the bright stars around of the dancers.

Judy watched from the tigress arm down to the crowd as most of them, if not all, cheered and clapped at all of them with joy and happiness.

Judy was more than just happy right now.

She of course remembered those many times when most of these mammas had instead of those long-waited happy faces shouted angrily and roughly, scolded and even threatened her due of her sometimes accidents and sometimes hooliganism tricks to all of them before her first character-building voyage on the seas.

Now, they looked at her with the full trust and happiness.

And then, Judy went completely silent.

Even among of all of this happiness all around of her...

...and even though she also smiled out of happiness of all of this...

...inside of her, she felt a bit sadness due to one certain fox pirate, Who had his own small but very instructive part to all of this, wasn't in presence.

Judy guessed in her mind that maybe without that certain fox pirates life advice he taught to her during of the voyage after that vicious maelstrom, nothing of this would have never happen.

And without that anybody saw, Judy raised her head to the sky to see how the tiny clouds had gathered to the sky above of her home island.

And then, the clouds either formed so that they looked like Wilder's head and face, or then Judy just imagines them doing so, to the sky.

Wilder's cloudy form "kind of" smiled down at her and winked his left eye as the bright star gleamed on the place of Wilder's left eye.

Judy smiled back of this cloudy form of Wilder, before the clouds eventually lost their shape and Wilder's cloud form vanished into the sky.

Though Judy missed this fox pirate and she had no idea that where he was at the moment or was he still alive or dead, Judy at least knew that Wilder will be always somehow watching her. And that he's always gonna be there for her, especially when she need him and his advices in life.

And, in fact, Judy also realized that captain Flint's trove, hidden in the center of the volcano back in the Treasure Tropolis, symbolizes something very important.

It symbolized that that the REAL treasure is not merely hidden gold or precious stones, at least the pirates particularly believe so, but the real treasure is hidden within everybody's chest with all those feelings; loyalty, trust, respect, care, friendship and even love and so on.

And it seems that she had learned well this lesson about the treasures.

"Thank you, great-great-great-grandpapa. And thank you too, Wilder... for everything." Judy whispered up to the sky with the happy smile on her lips.

 **THE END**


End file.
